Evening star., 1926-06-13

bearings in the evening proved that
we We're now sticking to our
meridian. These could now be espe-
cially relied on since we We're SO far
away from a station that a small
error would have given quite a great
deviation.
We also received wireless bearings
from the Stavanger radio in southern
Norway and these. too, correspondent
very closely.
At 9:35 pm. We took an observa
tiOn of the sun. According to the
position of the sun it would not have
given us our correct latitude unless
our longitude was correct. But that
being the case, it proved that we
were not so far north as expected.
At 8 pm. we had not been at $40
latitude. as expected, but close 20
81; that is, 40 nautical miles further
south. a little disappointing, but
what could be expected
Wind Cut the Speed.
At this time we had a bit of Il
breeze. reducing our speed to only a
little more than 81 miles an hour,
but it soon started to increase again.
AT 10: 80 pm. we met fog and passed
over it at an altitude of $500 feet.
When we got up to this height the
drift was found to he nothing, ac-
cording to observations taken just
before we left the ice behind us.
AS there was no drift. we should
now be headed due north and the
last minutes before II O'Clock. Kings
Bay meridian time was rather excit-
ing. as at that moment we should
ho,- ho -,ert,t
great satisfaction that was also the
case. Our latitude, according to an
observation of the sun. was SS de-
gress 80 minutes. Through the open
ings in the fog and later on when
the fog in the vicinity of the Pole
cleared away, we could ascertain
that there was no drift.
Preparing for the Pole.
This also was a great satisfaction,
as we knew that We We're heading
directly for the Pole and it only re-
mained to find out when we were
there.
According to our speed observa-
tions. we should be at the Pole at
about 1:30 am. on May II. The
sun at that moment would still have
position. given a good crossing,
'Se"IcH Il ItSiliOiI me ana our
meridian. The height the sun should
nave at the Pole at 1870 am. and
It's declination at that moment were
set on the seXtant and the correc-
tlonS taken into consideration
AT Ito am. the navigator got down
on his knees and started his obServa-
tfons through one of the windows
The sun rose quite slowly, partly be-
cause of the increase of it's declina-
ton and partly because we sailed
against it. The sun started to cover
the bubble in the seXtant and the
navigator announced:
Here we are"
The sun then was directly covering
the bubble: that is, having the height
it should have at that moment. The
speed was slowed down and the ship
brought down to low altitude. After
we had dropped the flags in the way
we have mentioned before, the ship
made a circle, during which the set
ting of the sun compass was correct
ed for a change of course of II de-
grees to the left.
Full speed was again ordered, the
sun brought into the sun compass and
the bow was pointed for Point Barrow
Changing Time.
At the moment we passed over the
Pole our time should have heen
changed to Point Barrow time; that is,
we had to put our watches II hours
back. 1t was not any longer 2:30 am
Norwegian time on the 18th of May.
but $3.50 pm. on the 11th of May
We had to repeat II hours we had
lived. We got two evenings in sue
cession with no day between
At 4:20 am. a longitude observation
indicated that we We're little west
of the Point Barrow meridian, as we
now were not steering for a geomet-
rical position at the North Pole any
longer. but for big part of a conti-
nent-Point Barrow was not our desti.
nation if we could reach further south
We did not take the trouble to try to
bring the ship back to that meridian;
we just carried on steering after the
sun compass that would take us along
a line parallel to that meridian.
Until now we had no drift, and
speed observations. showed little
breeze just astern which. had been
expected by our meteorologist. Up
to o'clock we had varying drift
angles to the port, which slackened
down toward o'clock. The navigator,
Riser Larsen, now could sit down for
short hours rest, which, together
with half an hour down in the Bering