has surpassed and scarcely any one approached them, unless, perhaps, the Russians on the Siberian coast; but then they have the great advantage of being natives of a country where snow is not uncommon. "Friday, December 14th. Yesterday we held a great festivity in honor of the Fram as being the vessel which has attained the highest latitude (the day before yesterday we reached 82° 30' north latitude). "The bill of fare at dinner was boiled mackerel, with parsely-butter sauce; pork cutlets and French pease; Norwegian wild strawberries, with rice and milk; Crown malt extract; afterwards coffee. For supper: new bread and currant cake, etc., etc. Later in the evening, a grand concert. Sweets and preserved pears were handed round. The culminating point of the entertainment was reached when a steaming hot and fragrant bowl of cherry-punch was carried in and served round amidst general hilarity. Our spirits were already very high, but this gave color to the whole proceedings. The greatest puzzle to most of them was where the ingredients for the punch, and more particularly the alcohol, had come from. [2] "Then followed the toasts. First, a long and festive one to 'The Fram,' which had now shown what she was capable of. It ran somewhat to this effect: 'There were many wise men who shook their heads when we started, and sent us ominous farewell greetings. But their head-shakings would have been less vigorous and their evil forebodings milder if they could have seen us at this moment, drifting quietly and at our ease across the most northerly latitudes ever attained by any vessel, and still farther northward. And the Fram is now not only the most northerly vessel on the globe, but has already passed over a large expanse of hitherto unknown regions, many degrees farther north than have ever been reached in this ocean on this side of the Pole. But we hope she will not stop here; concealed behind the mist of the future there are many triumphs in store for us--triumphs which will dawn upon us one by one when their time has come. But we will not speak of this now; we will be content with what has hitherto been achieved, and I believe that the promise implied in Björnson's greeting to us and to the Fram, when she was launched, has already been fulfilled, and with him we can exclaim: "'"Hurrah for the ship and her voyage dread! Where never before a keel has sped, Where never before a name was spoken, By Norway's name is the silence broken.'"