The Princeton union., 1912-03-21
History Of Anlundse1l,
DiSCoyerer OF South Pole
His Craft, the Fran, With
stood the North Pole Ice
Packs In 1895. v

ship necessitated Amundsen's winter
ing with the Gjoa at King point, 50
degrees 10 minutes north, 1873 degrees
west. But Amundsen, taking sledge,
arrived at Eagle City, Alaska, on Dec.
II, 1905, bringing the first news of his
successful achievement of the North
west passage to the world.
He returned to the Gjoa that win
ter and brought her safely through
the Bering strait, the first ship to
make the Northwest passage. He had
also determined the magnetic pole by
observations covering nearly two years
IN its Immediate vicinity.
The Northwest passage trip brought
Amundsen great renown, but soon
afterward he turned his thoughts to-
ward the north pole and once an
nounced his plan of drifting around
the polar sea. He received strong
backing from his countrymen, King
Haakon of Norway heading the list of
subscribers in support of his project.
In 1909, when DR.. Cook returned to
America with his yarn of how he dis
covered the north pole, Amundsen de-
clared he saw no reason to doubt the
doctors story. A little later he him
self announced his project of drifting
around the polar sea to the north pole,
plan which was a little jest Of his
own apparently, for he switched off
toward the south pole instead.
Fran Strongest Ship Ahoat.
The Franz the ship in which Captain
Amundsen made his expedition to the
antarctic, is the vessel in which DR..
F'rldtjof Nansen, the Norwegian ex-
plorer, achieved his ''farthest north"
in 1895. The word Fran means "for-
ward"
The ship was built especially for arc
tic ice bucking at Colin Archer's ship
yard at Larvik by Dr. Nansen after
his return from his Greenland voyage
in 1889, and it is considered the strong
est small craft ever constructed, her
power Of resistance to a crush of ice
being greater than the force which
would be needed to lift her on the ice.
The vessel is just big enough for a
crew of about twelve men, a typical
vikings party such as Amundsen and
the shippers of his race rejoice to take
with them to measure the strength of
small numbers against the freezing
might Of the arctic.
The Fran is U shaped tub, design
ed neither to be a fast nor a smooth
sailor. She is only 1O1 feet long and
her breadth one-third her length The
ship is pointed at both ends to make
nosing into and out of the ice equally
easy. She has no projecting corners
and on the whole resembles a Norwe-
gian pilotboat. Her sides are from
twenty eight to thirty-two inches thick
"a solid mass of pitch pine, oak and
greenheart, her hull being covered
with three and four thicknesses of
tough, heavy timber, four feet wide at
the bow and three feet at the stern
Withstood Rough Voyage.
Captain Otto Sverdrup, an experience
ed arctic navigator, who was with DR..
Nansen on his transgreenland trip of
1889, had charge Of the Fran on her
maiden voyage into the arctic, when
in 1896 Nansen reached the highest
latitude until then attained, S6 de-
grees II minutes north. It was a
rough voyage, the toughest timbers
had ever weathered, but the Fran
withstood the crush of the northern
ice pack.
At one point, in latitude S3 degrees
II minutes, the ice pack froze stiff
around her, and she seemed doomed to
remain in perpetual cold storage in
the frozen desert. Only by blasting
able to free her and continue their
course southwark.
On New Years day, just after Nan
sen left the ship for his dash over the
ice, the ice froze once more around her
and she was subjected to a pressure
that would have crushed any other
ship like an eggshelI. But the Fran
withstood it until the ice itself sudden
ly cracked, leaving a free lane of wa
ter ahead of her.
One week in June, 1896, at the height
Of the spring tides the Fran was ex-
posed to violent pressure by the chang
ing tide currents, which twice a day
lifted her from six to nine feet until
her bottom could be plainly seen rest
ing on the ice. Yet even then as she
was lifted out of her element and
beached upon the ice not crack or
groan was heard in her timbers. The
men aboard her were not even dis
turbed in their slumbers and awoke
ignorant of the danger that had men
aced them in the night. Many times
the little craft had to be thawed out
Of the ice with steam, and several
times gun powder and guncotton were
used to blast her free. But the Fran
came home without broken timber.
1t was for these qualities of the
sturdy little ice ship that Amundsen-
selected her as the ship of his latest