The first and most pressing work which we had to take in hand was to remove part of the high-pressure ridge on the port side. I was afraid that if the ice-pressure continued the vessel might be forced down instead of upward while she had so high a ridge of ice resting against the whole of her port side. The work was commenced by all hands on March 19th. We had five sledges, and a box on each, and each worked by two men. There were two parties at work simultaneously with one sledge each--forward, and two parties aft--working towards each other, while the fifth party, of two men with one sledge, were cutting a passage 13 feet wide right up to the middle of the vessel. The layer of ice which was in this way removed from all along the vessel's side reached to double the height of a man, except in the central passage, where it had previously been removed to a depth of about three yards, partly in view of possible ice-pressure against this, the lowest part of the hull, and partly in order to clear the gangway, by which the dogs passed to and from the vessel. The carting away of ice commenced on the 19th and concluded on March 27th. The whole of the pressure-ridge on the port side was removed down to such a depth that two and a half planks of the ship's ice-skin were free. All the time while this work was going on the weather was fairly cold, the temperature down to -38° and -40°C. (-36.4° and -40° Fahr.). However, all passed off well and successfully, except that Scott-Hansen was unfortunate enough to have one of his big toes frozen. The doctor and I were together at the same sledge. My diary says: "He always suspected me of being out of temper, and I him." As a matter of fact, it is my habit to dislike talking when I am busy with any work, while the reverse is the case with the doctor. As, according to my custom, I kept silence, the doctor believed that I was in a bad humor, and in the same way I fancied that he was in the sulks, because he abstained from chatting. But the misunderstanding was soon cleared up, and we laughed heartily at it. As Dr. Nansen's and Johansen's departure afforded an opportunity for a more comfortable redistribution of quarters, I moved into Nansen's cabin, after having packed in cases the effects he left behind, and stowed them away in the forehold. Jacobsen, the mate, who was formerly quartered with four of the crew in the large cabin on the port side, had my cabin allotted to him; and in the starboard cabin, where four men had been quartered, there were now only three. The workroom, too, was restored to its former honor and dignity. The lamp-glasses of the oil-stove there had got broken in the course of the year. Amundsen now replaced these with chimneys of tin, and fitted thin sheets of mica over the peep-holes. The stove having thus been repaired, the workroom became the busiest and most comfortable compartment in the whole vessel.