"The contrivance is as simple as possible. From a reservoir of oil a pipe leads down and into the fireplace; the oil drips down from the end of this pipe into an iron bowl, and is here sucked up by a sheet of asbestos, or by coal ashes. The flow of oil from the pipe is regulated by a fine valve cock. To insure a good draught, I bring a ventilating pipe from outside right by the range door. Air is pressed through this by a large wind-sail on deck, and blows straight on to the iron bowl, where the oil burns briskly with a clear, white flame. Whoever lights the fire in the morning has only to go on deck and see that the wind-sail is set to the wind, to open the ventilator, to turn the cock so that the oil runs properly, and then set it burning with a scrap of paper. It looks after itself, and the water is boiling in twenty minutes or half an hour. One could not have anything much easier than this, it seems to me. But of course in our, as in other communities, it is difficult to introduce reforms; everything new is looked upon with suspicion." Somewhat later I write of the same apparatus: "We are now using the galley again, with the coal-oil fire; the moving down took place the day before yesterday, [63] and the fire was used yesterday. It works capitally; a three-foot wind is enough to give a splendid draught. The day before yesterday, when I was sitting with some of the others in the saloon in the afternoon, I heard a dull report out in the galley, and said at once that it sounded like an explosion. Presently Pettersen [64] stuck a head in at the door as black as a sweep's, great lumps of soot all over it, and said that the stove had exploded right into his face; he was only going to look if it was burning rightly, and the whole fiendish thing flew out at him. A stream of words not unmingled with oaths flowed like peas out of a sack, while the rest of us yelled with laughter. In the galley it was easy to see that something had happened; the walls were covered with soot in lumps and stripes pointing towards the fireplace. The explanation of the accident was simple enough. The draught had been insufficient, and a quantity of gas had formed which had not been able to burn until air was let in by Pettersen opening the door. "This is a good beginning. I told Pettersen in the evening that I would do the cooking myself next day, when the real trial was to be made. But he would not hear of such a thing; he said 'I was not to think that he minded a trifle like that; I might trust to its being all right'--and it was all right. From that day I heard nothing but praise of the new apparatus, and it was used until the Fram was out in the open sea again.