On May 1st we had finished the snow-shoes intended for daily use, and I gave orders that, henceforth, daily snow-shoe trips should be made by all hands from 11 A.M. till 1 P.M., if the weather was good. These snow-shoe runs were to everybody's taste, and were necessary, not only in order to afford brisk exercise in the open air, but also in order to impart to those who were less accustomed to snow-shoes a sufficient degree of skill in the event of our having to abandon the Fram. While the removal of the ridge was proceeding there continued to be a good deal of disturbance in the ice. Twenty yards from the vessel a new lane was formed running parallel to the old one between us from the depot; and in addition to this a number of larger or smaller cracks had opened in all directions. A little later on, during the time from April 11th to May 9th, there was on the whole considerable disturbance in the ice, with several violent pressures in the lanes around the vessel. On the first-mentioned day, in the evening, Scott-Hansen and I took a snow-shoe trip towards the northeast, along the new channel between the vessel and the depot. On our way back pressure set in in the channel, and we had an opportunity of witnessing a "screwing" such as I had never seen equalled. First there was quite a narrow channel, running parallel to the principal channel, which was covered over with young ice about 2 feet thick. Thereupon a larger channel opened just beyond the first and running alongside it. During the pressure which then followed, the edges crashed against each other with such violence as to force the ice down, so that we frequently saw it from 3 to 4 fathoms deep under water. Newly frozen sea-ice is marvellously elastic, and will bend to an astonishing degree without breaking. In another place we saw how the new ice had bulged up in large wave-like eminences, without breaking. On May 5th the wide lane aft was jammed up by ice-pressure, and in its stead a rift was formed in the ice on the port side about 100 yards from us, and approximately parallel to the ship. Thus we now lay in an altered position, inasmuch as the Fram was no longer connected with and dependent on one solid and continuous ice-field, but separated from it by more or less open channels and attached to a large floe which was daily decreasing in size as new cracks were formed.