"Wednesday, May 8th. The lanes still appear regularly in certain places--as a rule, where the ice is very uneven, and where there are old and new ridges alternately; between these places there are long, flat stretches of ice without lanes. These are often perfectly even, almost like 'inland ice.' The direction of the lanes is, as before, very often athwart our course, or a little more southwesterly. Others, again, seem to go in about the same direction as we do. This ice is extraordinary; it seems to become more and more even as we approach land, instead of the contrary, as we expected. If it would only keep so! It is considerably flatter than it was about the Fram, it seems to me. There are no really impracticable places, and the irregularities there are seen to be of small dimensions--rubble-ice, and so forth; no huge mounds and ridges, as we had farther north. Some of the lanes here are narrow, and so far new that the water was only covered with brash. This can be deceptive enough; it appears to be even ice, but thrust one's staff in, and it goes right through and into the water. "This morning I made out our latitude and longitude. The former was (Sunday, May 5th) 84° 31' N., and the latter 66° 15' E. We were not so far south as I expected, but considerably farther west. It is the drift which has put us back and westward. I shall, therefore, for the future, steer a more southerly course than before, about due south (true), as we are still drifting westward, and, above everything, I am afraid of getting too far in that direction. It is to be hoped that we shall soon have land in sight, and we shall then know where to steer. We undoubtedly ought to be there now. "No dog was killed yesterday, as there were two-thirds left of 'Ulenka' from the previous day, which provided an abundant repast. I now only intend to slaughter one every other day, and perhaps we shall soon come across a bear. "Thursday, May 9th. +9° Fahr. (-13.3° C.). Yesterday was a fairly good day. The ice was certainly not first-rate, rather rubbly, and the going heavy, but all the same we are making steady way forward. There were long, flat stretches every now and then. The weather had become quite fine when we got under way, about 3 o'clock this morning. The sun was shining through light cumulus clouds. It was hard work, however, making head against the ice, and soon the fog came down with the wind, which still blew from the same direction (N.N.E.).