I have long seen that it is impossible to reach the Pole itself or its immediate vicinity over such ice as this and with these dogs. If only we had more of them! What would I not give now to have the Olenek dogs? We must turn, sooner or later. But as it is only a question of time, could we not turn it to better account in Franz Josef Land than by travelling over this drift-ice, which we have now had a good opportunity of learning to know? In all probability it will be exactly the same right to the Pole. We cannot hope to reach any considerable distance higher before time compels us to turn. We certainly ought not to wait much longer. Twelve midday, -20.8° Fahr. (-29.4° C), clear weather, 3 feet wind from east; twelve midnight, -29.2° Fahr. (-34° C), clear and still." It became more and more of a riddle to me that we did not make greater progress northward. I kept on calculating and adding up our marches as we went along, but always with the same result; that is to say, provided only the ice were still, we must be far above the eighty-sixth parallel. It was becoming only too clear to me, however, that the ice was moving southward, and that in its capricious drift, at the mercy of wind and current, we had our worst enemy to combat. "Friday, April 5th. Began our march at three yesterday morning. The ice, however, was bad, with lanes and ridges, so that our progress was but little. These lanes, with rubble thrown up on each side, are our despair. It is like driving over a tract of rocks, and delays us terribly. First I must go on ahead to find a way, and then get my sledge through; then, perhaps, by way of a change, one falls into the water; yesterday, I fell through twice. If I work hard in finding a way and guiding my sledge over rough places, Johansen is no better off, with his two sledges to look after. It is a tough job to get even one of them over the rubble, to say nothing of the ridges; but he is a plucky fellow, and no mistake, and never gives in. Yesterday he fell into the water again in crossing a lane, and got wet up to his knees. I had gone over on my snow-shoes shortly before and did not notice that the ice was weak. He came afterwards without snow-shoes, walking beside one of the sledges, when suddenly the ice gave, and he fell through. Happily he managed to catch hold of the sledge, and the dogs, which did not stop, pulled him up again. These baths are not an unmixed pleasure, now that there is no possibility of drying or changing one's clothes, and one must wear a chain mail of ice until they thaw and dry on the body, which takes some time in this temperature. I took an observation for longitude and a magnetic observation yesterday morning, and have spent the whole forenoon to-day in calculations (inside the bag) to find out our exact position. I find our latitude yesterday was 86° 2.8' N. This is very little, but what can we do when the ice is what it is? And these dogs cannot work harder than they do, poor things.