This warm water can hardly come from the Arctic Sea itself, while the current issuing thence towards the south has a general temperature of about -1.5° C. It can hardly be anything other than the Gulf Stream that finds its way hither, and replaces the water which in its upper layers flows towards the north, forming the sources of the East Greenland polar current. All this seems to chime in with my previous assumptions, and supports the theory on which this expedition was planned. And when, in addition to this, one bears in mind that the winds seem, as anticipated, to be as a rule southeasterly, as was, moreover, the case at the international station at Sagastyr (by the Lena mouth), our prospects do not appear to be unfavorable. Frequently, moreover, I thought I could detect unmistakable symptoms of a steadily flowing northwesterly current under the ice, and then, of course, my spirits rose; but at other times, when the drift again bore southward--and that was often--my doubts would return, and it seemed as if there was no prospect of getting through within any reasonable time. Truly such drifting in the ice is extremely trying to the mind; but there is one virtue it fosters, and that is patience. The whole expedition was in reality one long course of training in this useful virtue. Our progress as the spring advanced grew somewhat better than it had been during the winter, but on the whole it was always the same sort of crab-like locomotion; for each time we made a long stretch to the north, a longer period of reaction was sure to follow. It was, in the opinion of one of our number, who was somewhat of a politician, a constant struggle between the Left and Right, between Progressionists and Recessionists. After a period of Left wind and a glorious drift northward, as a matter of course the "Radical Right" took the helm, and we remained lying in dead-water or drifted backward, thereby putting Amundsen into a very bad temper. It was a remarkable fact that during the whole time the Fram's bow turned towards the south, generally S. 1/4 W., and shifted but very little during the whole drift. As I say on May 14th: "She went backward towards her goal in the north, with her nose ever turned to the south. It is as though she shrank from increasing her distance from the world; as though she were longing for southern shores, while some invisible power is drawing her on towards the unknown. Can it be an ill omen, this backward advance towards the interior of the Polar Sea? I cannot think it; even the crab ultimately reaches its goal." A statement of our latitude and longitude on different days will best indicate the general course of our drift: