His resolve was made accordingly "to take a ticket with the ice," as he phrases it, and so drift across. The point where it would be best to join the current, Nansen decided to be off the New Siberian Islands, although Captain Wiggins recommends the most northerly point of continental land, Cape Chelyuskin, as a more likely starting place. At first Nansen proposed to follow the "Jeannette" through Bering Sea, but he has now decided to take the nearer route round the North Cape, through the Kara Sea, and along the coast of Asia, as the "Vega" went, striking northward off the Lena Delta. It will require extremely skilful navigation even to reach the starting point, and it may even be impossible to do so in one year, but, having reached and run into the ice, another question comes to the front. The vessel in which the drift of several years is to be made must not share the fate of the "Jeannette," if human ingenuity can avoid it. And ingenuity has been taxed to produce a ship of the most perfect kind. Nansen's little vessel, launched at Laurvik last October, suits his venture and himself as well as the famous "long serpents" of his ancestors suited them and their voyages of conquest and discovery a thousand years ago. She is built of wood, but is of a strength never hitherto aimed at. The frame timbers, Nansen modestly says, "may be said to be well-seasoned," for though cut from the gnarled oaks of Italy they have been stored in a Norwegian dockyard during the whole lifetime of the explorer. These timbers--the ribs of the ship--are a foot thick, and are placed only two inches apart, the intervening spaces being filled with a special composition, so that even the skeleton of the ship would be water-tight should the planks be stripped off. Inside, the walls are lined with pitch-pine planks alternately four inches and eight inches thick, with cross-beams and supports to resist pressure in every direction, as shown in the accompanying section. Outside, there is a three-inch skin of oak, carefully calked and made water-tight, then covered by another skin of oak four inches thick, which in turn is encased in a still thicker layer of the hard and slippery greenheart. Bow and stern are heavily plated with iron to cut through thin ice. Finally, to render her fit for living in during the coldest weather, the water-tight compartment set apart for this purpose (one of three) is lined, walls and ceiling, with layers of non-conducting material. Tarred canvas, cork, wood, several inches of felt enclosed by painted canvas, and finally a wooden wainscot, promise to effectually keep out the cold. In the roof, a layer of two inches of reindeer's hair has also been introduced.