On the beach I found a mass of spermacetti weighing over two hundred pounds that had been cast up by the sea. I also gathered many pumice fragments, worn by abrasion into balls and egg-shaped masses. The character of this pumice shows that it came from the great eruption of _Askja_, Bowl, one hundred and twenty-five miles away. It was probably blown into the eastern _Jökullsá_, Ice-Mountain-River, floated out to sea and was then driven north by wind and current to this shore. Among all the flotsam on this stormy shore the strangest was a find of tropical plants that had drifted with the Gulf Stream past the north of Norway, thence eastward to Nova Zembla, then north and west towards Franz Josef Land and then west towards Spitzbergen where it was liberated and came down with the Polar drift from the Siberian forests as above mentioned. Here the Tropics and the Arctic meet on the Arctic Circle. We shot many birds on the shore for museum specimens and enough for an ample feast for our entire party. We came on board again after several hours of tramping in the driving rain and in a temperature close to the freezing point. It was a fine experience and we ran no risk save in beaching and launching of our little boat. When we had changed our clothing and had partaken of a hot meal we felt amply repaid for the exertion as the examination of the drift material on the shore was well worth while. I quote from my journal of 1911. “It is midnight. The wind is blowing a full gale which is periodically accented by gusts of higher velocity. The _Matador_ is straining at her cable in an alarming manner. The rigging creaks and groans as the boat rolls in the blast. The sea is running high, the rain descends in torrents and the spray from the crests of the waves is driving over us in sheets and slashes against the windows of the tiny deck cabin. On the shore, where we landed this noon the breakers are rolling heavily and we can hear the rumble and grinding of the rocks as the water rushes back into the sea. If our cable parts we must be driven onto the shore. The Baron[7] has come on deck to bid me good night. “It is rough outside the Ness tonight, judging by what we are getting in here,” I remarked. “We may be thankful that we are snug here and not being driven before the gale out there,” he replied. “Many a ship has gone down to Davy Jones’ Locker off that point in just such weather as this. Do you know that the _Fridtjof_ lies at the bottom of the Ness?” “What of the _Fridtjof_, Baron?”