with the speed and punctuality of a ship on her regular route. The
Fram's builder, the excellent Colin Archer, has reason to be proud
of the way in which his "child" has performed her latest task --
this vessel that has been farthest north and farthest south on our
globe. But Captain Nilsen and the crew of the Fram have done more than
this; they have carried out a work of research which in scientific
value may be compared with what their comrades have accomplished
in the unknown world of ice, although most people will not be able
to recognize this. While Amundsen and his companions were passing
the winter in the South, Captain Nilsen, in the Fram, investigated
the ocean between South America and Africa. At no fewer than sixty
stations they took a number of temperatures, samples of water, and
specimens of the plankton in this little-known region, to a depth of
2,000 fathoms and more. They thus made the first two sections that
have ever been taken of the South Atlantic, and added new regions of
the unknown ocean depths to human knowledge. The Fram's sections are
the longest and most complete that are known in any part of the ocean.


Would it be unreasonable if those who have endured and achieved so much
had now come home to rest? But Amundsen points onward. So much for
that; now for the real object. Next year his course will be through
Behring Strait into the ice and frost and darkness of the North, to
drift right across the North Polar Sea -- five years, at least. It
seems almost superhuman; but he is the man for that, too. Fram is
his ship, "forward" is his motto, and he will come through.[1] He
will carry out his main expedition, the one that is now before him,
as surely and steadily as that he has just come from.

But while we are waiting, let us rejoice over what has already been