The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 | Page 5

to a science, and from them Nansen learned to be the master of those dogs which were of so much service to him in his last and greatest expedition.
This expedition was undertaken in June, 1893, and its object was to drift across the pole from Siberia to Greenland.
During Nansen's Arctic experiences he had noticed that the shores of Greenland were strewn with driftwood of a kind also found on the shores of Siberia.
The matter caused him some deep thought, and at length he arrived at the conclusion that there must be a current which crosses the Arctic Ocean and carries this material from Asia to America.
After much thought, he came to the conclusion that if he could only build himself a vessel which would withstand the pressure of the ice, and once get into the stream, he and his vessel would be carried with the rest of the drift from Asia to America, and in the course of the trip would be borne right across the North Pole.
It was a bold scheme, and for a time no one would listen to it, but Nansen's reputation stood him in good stead here, and finally convinced people that he must have a good foundation for his belief.
With the aid of a few wealthy persons and the assistance of the King of Sweden, Nansen was able to have a suitable vessel built, and to make preparations for the undertaking.
The greatest danger to Arctic travel is the pressure of the ice. When the winter comes on, and the sea tries to freeze over, the currents and the tides, and the unthawed blocks of ice that have been left from the last winter, cause a terrible disturbance. The ice, in its endeavor to pack itself solidly together, slides over itself with groans and creaks that sound like human cries.
The force the ice exerts under these circumstances is enormous, so great indeed that it can crush big ships, and crack their sides as though they were no stronger than eggshells.
Nansen could not hope to build a ship which should be strong enough to withstand this pressure, but he did hope to make one that would be able to rise above the ice, and escape the crushing altogether.
His object was to have the sides so shaped that the ice would encounter a rounded surface on which it could not get any hold, and would therefore slide lower and lower down the sides of the ship until it at last met under the keel, lifting the ship above the dangerous pressure.
The vessel, which Nansen called the Fram, was built according to his own plans, and when finished was a clumsy-looking craft.
In an ordinary sea she pitched and rolled so badly that everybody on board was seasick, and during the first few days of her trip the sailors were one and all afraid that she would roll completely over and go to the bottom.
In the ice she behaved exactly as Nansen had expected she would, and, once frozen to the ice, gave the explorer no anxiety that she would be crushed or wrecked.
For three long years Nansen and his party were away on their expedition. Steaming from Norway to the coast of Siberia, where he took his pack of dogs on board, Nansen headed for the Polar Sea, and made all the speed he could to reach the farthest north possible before the winter set in, and was finally frozen into the ice where he supposed the current must be which was to bear him across the North Pole.
To his infinite joy, he found, after weeks of uncertainty, that he was actually drifting with the ice, and that his theory was correct.
He did not go as directly north as he had hoped, and on March 14th, 1896, after nearly three years of patient drifting, he made up his mind that the Fram had gone as far north as she would go, and that henceforth she would take a southerly course.
He was but three hundred and fifty miles from the Pole, and he determined to make an effort to reach it himself, with the aid of his dogs and kayaks.
He therefore left the Fram, and, with but one man to bear him company, he made a dash for the Pole.
He succeeded in covering ninety-five miles of the unknown ocean, and reached within two hundred and sixty-one miles of the Pole, but here he was obliged to turn back. All his dogs were dead and he had but two weeks' provisions left, so he turned his face south.
His surmises about the Fram proved correct; she drifted south, and eventually reached Spitzbergen.
The immediate scientific advantages of Nansen's trip are that he found the Pole was covered by sea, and that no land existed there, as so many persons had believed.
He found that