Every article of equipment down to the minutest detail was Nansen’s own conception. Originality has always been a marked feature of his character. The matter of first importance then, in his projected enterprise, was the building of a special vessel to come out uninjured after the long Arctic drift. In Mr Colin Archer of Laurvik Nansen found a constructor, careful and resourceful as himself, with long experience in boat and ship-building. The son of a Scotch boat-builder who had settled in Norway early in the last century, Colin Archer was brought up to the craft, and he was the very man to turn Nansen’s ideas into realities. The result was the _Fram_. The main points were great strength, and sides constructed in such a manner that the ship would readily rise during ice pressure. She was also to have large carrying capacity, her beam being nearly a third of her length[159]. She was provided with a triple-expansion engine, and her rig was that of a three-masted fore-and-aft schooner. But the main object of Nansen and Colin Archer was that “she should slip like an eel out of the embraces of the ice.” Nansen’s friend, Baron von Toll, went to the New Siberia Islands in May 1893, and established a depôt of a month’s provisions at the house he built in 1886 on the coast of Kotelnoi Island. Dogs were to be stationed at Khabarova in Pett Strait. The crew of the _Fram_ numbered 13 including the commander. Sverdrup, the companion of Nansen on the inland ice of Greenland, was the master; Sigurd Scott Hansen, a first lieutenant in the navy, went as navigator and scientific observer; Dr Blessing was surgeon. In July 1893, the _Fram_ sailed from Norway on this great and novel enterprise, and on the 29th of that month the dogs were taken on board at Khabarova. Nansen crossed the Kara Sea, and proceeded along the coast of Siberia, discovering several small islands. On September 8th, Cape Chelyuskin was rounded. On the 16th a northern course was shaped, a little to the west of the new Siberian Islands, and for some days good progress was made. It was not until the 25th of September that the _Fram_ was finally frozen in and the famous drift began. Scott Hansen took astronomical observations every second day, and a snow house was built on the floe for magnetic observations. Deep sea soundings, with temperatures at various depths, were periodically taken. In October 1893 the first great pressure was experienced. The ice was piling up around the _Fram_, tossing itself into lofty ridges, and breaking against her sides. In January 1894 matters looked so serious that preparations were made to abandon the ship, but she withstood and rose to any pressure, thus fully confirming the correctness of Colin Archer’s structural plan.