[54] Up to this day I am not quite clear as to what these emblems were intended to signify. That the doctor, from want of practice, would have been glad of a normal day's work ("normal Arbeidsdag") can readily be explained, but why the meteorologists should cry out for universal suffrage passes my comprehension. Did they want to overthrow despotism? [55] With reference to the resolution of the Storthing, on June 9, 1880. [56] It was seal, walrus, and bear's flesh from last autumn, which was used for the dogs. During the winter it had been hung up in the ship, and was still quite fresh. But henceforth it was stored on the ice until, before autumn set in, it was consumed. It is remarkable how well meat keeps in these regions. On June 28th we had reindeer-steak for dinner that we had killed on the Siberian coast in September of the previous year. [57] The same kind of dust that I found on the ice on the east coast of Greenland, which is mentioned in the Introduction to this book, p. 39. [58] This dust, which is to be seen in summer on the upper surface of almost all polar ice of any age, is no doubt, for the most part, dust that hovers in the earth's atmosphere. It probably descends with the falling snow, and gradually accumulates into a surface layer as the snow melts during the summer. Larger quantities of mud, however, are also often to be found on the ice, which strongly resemble this dust in color, but are doubtless more directly connected with land, being formed on floes that have originally lain in close proximity to it. (Compare Wissensch. Ergebnisse von Dr. F. Nansens Durchquerung von Grönland. Ergänzungsheft No. 105 zu Petermanns Mittheilungen.) [59] I have not yet had time to examine them closely. [60] We always had a line, with a net at the end, hanging out, in order to see the direction we were drifting, or to ascertain whether there was any perceptible current in the water. [61] The name given to the cooking-stove. [62] It was two years later to a day that the Fram put in at Skjervö, on the coast of Norway. [63] During the summer we had made a kitchen of the chart-room on deck, because of the good daylight there; and, besides, the galley proper was to be cleaned and painted. [64] Pettersen had been advanced from smith to cook, and he and Juell took turns of a fortnight each in the galley. [65] "Twilight of the gods." [66] See Geographical Journal, London, 1893. See also the map in Naturen, 1890, and the Norwegian Geographical Society's Year Book, I., 1890. [67] These were the puppies born on December 13, 1893; only four of them were now alive. [68] We had no covering over the ship the first winter, as we thought it would make it so dark, and make it difficult to find one's way about on deck. But when we put in on the second winter we found that it was an improvement. [69] An allusion, no doubt, to his political opinions (Trans.).