I sigh for the sledge-dogs from the Olenek daily now. The longitude for yesterday was 98° 47.15'', variation 44.4°. "I begin to think more and more that we ought to turn back before the time we originally fixed. [14] It is probably 350 miles or so to Petermann's Land (in point of fact it was about 450 miles to Cape Fligely); but it will probably take us all we know to get over them. The question resolves itself into this: Ought we not, at any rate, to reach 87° N.? But I doubt whether we can manage it if the ice does not improve. "Saturday, April 6th. Two A.M., -11.4° Fahr. (-24.2° C). The ice grew worse and worse. Yesterday it brought me to the verge of despair, and when we stopped this morning I had almost decided to turn back. I will go on one day longer, however, to see if the ice is really as bad farther northward as it appears to be from the ridge, 30 feet in height, where we are encamped. We hardly made 4 miles yesterday. Lanes, ridges, and endless rough ice, it looks like an endless moraine of ice-blocks; and this continual lifting of the sledges over every irregularity is enough to tire out giants. Curious this rubble-ice. For the most part it is not so very massive, and seems as if it had been forced up somewhat recently, for it is incompletely covered with thin, loose snow, through which one falls suddenly up to one's middle. And thus it extends mile after mile northward, while every now and then there are old floes, with mounds that have been rounded off by the action of the sun in the summer--often very massive ice. "I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we are not doing any good here. We shall not be able to get much farther north, and it will be slow work indeed if there be much more of this sort of ice towards Franz Josef Land. On the other hand, we should be able to make much better use of our time there, if we should have any over. 8.30 P.M., -29.2° Fahr. (-34° C.). "Monday, April 8th. No; the ice grew worse and worse, and we got no way. Ridge after ridge, and nothing but rubble to travel over. We made a start at 2 o'clock or so this morning, and kept at it as long as we could, lifting the sledges all the time; but it grew too bad at last. I went on a good way ahead on snowshoes, but saw no reasonable prospect of advance, and from the highest hummocks only the same kind of ice was to be seen. It was a veritable chaos of ice-blocks, stretching as far as the horizon. There is not much sense in keeping on longer; we are sacrificing valuable time and doing little. If there be much more such ice between here and Franz Josef Land, we shall, indeed, want all the time we have. "I therefore determined to stop, and shape our course for Cape Fligely.