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boats with us of different sizes; two of these are very big, and are specially built for the event of such an accident. They are 29ft. long and oft. broad; they have a deck, and can really be regarded as two small reserve ships. The whole crew can live pretty comfortably even in one of them, and there will be room for a good deal of provisions besides. A disaster can hardly come so suddenly that we shall not be able to see beforehand, and get good time to put these boats and provisions and fuel on the ice. Then there will be no danger; we can drift on with the ice just as safely as we did before, nay, even more safely, as the boats will stand on the ice and thus cannot easily be crushed by the floes.

We should certainly not have as much comfort as we had in the Fram, but it is not difficult to make these boats good warm winter quarters by help of snow and warm tents made of fur. And in case the big boats should also be lost, we can build snow-huts on the ice.

How long the expedition will last is, of course, very difficult to calculate before hand, as we do not know much of the speed of the current with which we are going to travel. I believe, however, there is not much probability that it will take more than three years till we come out into open sea again or to somewhere from whence we can return home; and as we have taken provisions for five or even six years, I think we shall not run the risk of starving.

It has been said that this expedition is very risky; indeed, I believe this is the general opinion. I cannot agree with it. The reasons why it is considered risky are, however, of different kinds. Some people say there is no such current as I have supposed—the ice does not move at all; others say the ice is only carried along by occasional winds; others, again, say there are certainly currents, but nobody knows where they will take you. A few people agree with me that there must be such a current as I maintain there is, but the ice is dangerous and may destroy us, or we may be stopped by unknown lands in the north. Nothing of all this convinces me. If there is no current, I do not see why it should be risky to go: we shall be unable to advance, and will be able to return when we see we are mistaken. If there are currents, however, or if the ice is only moved by winds which have the same effect, we must certainly, in less than five or six years, be brought somewhere near the coasts of the Polar Sea, and wherever we come we shall be able to reach human dwellings, whether it be on the American or the Asiatic side. The Polar basin is really so small that in the course of five years we must be drifted across it, whatever the speed may be. If the ship is destroyed we will make use of our boats, as I have already mentioned; and if our drift is stopped by land, we shall either have to try and get afloat again or have to travel over the ice and make for the nearest land known. The Polar basin is not so great as to render this impossible when you have an equipment specially adapted for it, and take care to travel with the currents and not against them.

But all these and many other similar questions we shall probably be able to answer more fully when we return, whether we have been successful or not. We are certainly prepared to meet with hardships of various