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quicker and quicker, stern-foremost, down the sharply sloping groove which leads to the water. It plunges deeper and deeper. For a moment it almost seems as though it were going to sink, or at any rate to strike the bottom. But as the stem approaches the water the stern rises, and finally the whole vessel floats away, to be brought back in a few minutes, laid alongside the wharf, and there moored. At the moment when the whole bulk of the ship had taken the water, a great wave swept shoreward and washed over the rocks and over the onlookers who had perched themselves close to the sea. We could see them from the distance scrambling like wet flies up the slippery rocks. A large boat which had been swept ashore by the wave was with difficulty saved, but without misadventure.

'On the platform, by his wife's side, Fridtiof Nansen stood tall and erect, and watched the scene. All eyes were bent upon them. We could not but think what their feelings must have been at the moment when the vessel glided into the sea feelings of gladness that the prologue to the long dark drama that was to be enacted in the polar night was now happily concluded; feelings of pain at the thought of the long separation that lay before them.

For all who were present, it was a moment of deep emotion when, amid the booming of guns and the thundering cheers of the multitude, the Fram plunged into the sea and rose again proudly in its freedom. Many were afterwards heard to say that it was one of the most impressive experiences of their lives. As the ship glided forth in the silvery light reflected from the calm surface of the sea, we seemed, in a flash of foresight, to be reading the Saga of the future. We seemed to glance down the vista of her destiny, to see her, in waters no keel has yet furrowed, spreading

light over regions no eye has yet seen. And when we came to think of the stern realities which must one day surround the vessel and its crew on their daring quest, the cold, the darkness, the storms, the icebergs, and all that follows in their train, we could not but feel a touch of awe. But in Fridtiof Nansen's serene, unembarrassed, steadfast glance, there was no trace of doubt or anxiety. He has the faith and the will-power that can move mountains.'

Colin Archer, the builder of the Fram, belongs to a Scotch family. His name is widely known and highly respected in Norway. It is not many years since our pilot. boats were sadly deficient in point both of speed and of safety. They were neither well built nor well designed for the work they had to do, so that it frequently happened that the boat went down and took the pilot with it. Mr. Archer devoted himself to the task of furnishing our pilots with a faster and safer sea-boat. After more than twenty years' work, he has met with such success that the pilot can now face almost any weather in one of his boats, and that those he leaves at home need no longer tremble and turn pale when the surf is lashing and the storm sweeping over the sea.'1

In a speech which he made that day, Mr. Archer said that he would never have been able to solve this peculiar problem, so unlike any that he had hitherto attempted, if Nansen himself had not furnished him with the key; it was Nansen's constructive sense that had throughout pointed the way. But Nansen had no less right on his side when he praised Colin Archer's talent, and expressed the belief that never before had a ship been built for Arctic work with any approach to the care and thought which had been devoted to this one. Let us hope that Colin Archer's most note

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worthy pilot boat,' which is to pilot humanity through icepacked channels and over unknown waters, may stand the test as well as the other Archer-boats,' its predecessors.

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The Fram, which in reality somewhat resembles a pilot boat, is specially designed to play the part allotted it in Nansen's general scheme. His idea is not to burst his way by force through masses of ice, but to let the Fram lie firmly frozen in and be carried forward by the current. It is not a fast ship, then, that he needs, but a vessel which can bear an immense pressure of ice without being crushed. It had to be so designed that the ice should not be able to grip its sides and squeeze them together, but should, as it were, wedge itself under the hull and force it up out of the water. For this reason the sides and bottom are strongly rounded. In order to secure the greatest possible strength the ship had to be as small as possible, and particularly short in proportion to its breadth. This would facilitate both the raising of the hull when the ice got packed under it, and the handling of the vessel among the floes when it should be. released from its ice-berth.

The Fram's length on deck is 128 feet; length on waterline, 113 feet; keel, 102 feet. Her extreme breadth is 36 feet; breadth at water-line, exclusive of ice-skin, 34 feet; depth, 17 feet. When she is lightly loaded, the draft of water is 12 feet. The keel, which is 14 inches by 14 inches, American elm, projects only 3 inches below the planking, and its edges are well rounded. The frames are double, being built chiefly of Italian oak, obtained from the dockyards at Horten, where it had been stored for thirty years. The lining is pitch-pine. The outside planking consists of three layers: the inner one being 3 inches oak, the middle one 4 inches oak, and outside all an ice-skin of greenheart,

increasing in thickness from 3 inches at the keel to 6 inches at the water-line. Both bow and stern are protected by a covering of iron bars. The total thickness of the ship's sides is 24 to 28 inches, and their power of resisting pressure is thus very considerable; but it is greatly increased by powerful beams or stays of wood or iron. The hold is divided into three water-tight compartments. The structural strength of the Fram is thus quite exceptional. Never before has a vessel been so fortified against the attacks of the ice.

During these years of toil Nansen enjoyed breathing spaces, when he gathered his friends around him. These pleasant interludes in his work will never be forgotten by those who took part in them. They remember the dinner when all the painters-Werenskiold, Eilif Peterssen, Skredsvig, Munthe, Sinding-gave themselves up to high jinks without beginning or end, when they would on no account listen to polite speeches, but rushed into the kitchen and set the pump going whenever any one began. Nansen was thoroughly at home among the painters-he himself dabbled a little in their handicraft,' and, during his Bergen days, had worked in the studio of old Schiertz, who thought he had the makings of an artist in him.

They remember, too, that Midsummer Eve, when Lammers sang of the hero Roland, and Nansen went down. to the bonfire and piled on wood.

By way of exemplifying the hours of relaxation in the life of labour depicted in this book, one of the authors will

1 Nansen draws excellently; all the plates for his zoological, anatomical, and histological essays are drawn by himself. We may mention, as a characteristic instance of his energy in every department, that he was not content with himself making the drawings for his works, but also learned lithography, so that, for example, the plates in his principal essay on the nervous system are drawn on the stone with his own hand.

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