The cooking apparatus consisted of two boilers and a vessel for melting snow or ice. A Swedish gas-petroleum lamp, known as “The Primus,” in which the heat turns the petroleum into gas before it is consumed, was used for heating. Nansen used petroleum because it generates more heat in comparison with its weight than alcohol. He took with him 4 gallons, and this enabled them to cook two hot meals a day and melt an abundance of water during 120 days. Several pairs of snow-shoes were taken. Their firearms consisted of two double-barrelled guns, each having a shot-barrel of 20 bore, and a barrel for ball of about 360 calibre; and the ammunition amounted to about 180 rifle-cartridges and 150 shot-cartridges. The instruments were: a small theodolite, a pocket sextant and artificial horizon, a light azimuth compass and two other compasses, two aneroid barometers, two minimum spirit-thermometers, three quicksilver sling-thermometers, an aluminium telescope, and a photographic camera. As regards provisions, the chief article was pemmican, but there was also a good supply of butter, calf’s liver, albuminous flour, wheat-flour, whey-powder, cornflour, sugar, vril-food, chocolate, oatmeal, white bread, aleuronate bread, fish-flour, dried potatoes, cocoa, a “special food” made of pea-flour, meat-powder, fat, etc., and a few others. An important point as regards provisions is that the food should be in a condition to be eaten without cooking, in case the fuel be lost or used up. During the first week the travelling was good, from 9 to as many as 20 miles being covered daily. On the 22nd of March the latitude was found to be 85° 9′. From this time onward the ice was bad. The temperature at first was very low, frequently more than 40° below zero. On 29th March the latitude was found to be 85° 30′, although Nansen expected that he had reached 86°. This probably indicated that the ice was drifting southwards. On 30th March, when one of the sledges was going over a crack in the ice, all the dogs fell in, and had to be hauled out. The next sledge fell in, and had to be unloaded before it could be got out. Next day Johansen in crossing a lane went through the edge of the ice, wetting both legs, which soon became covered with a mass of ice. A great deal had always to be done before starting off on the day’s journey. The breakfast had to be cooked; sometimes a sledge had to be relashed; a hole would be found in a fish-flour sack which had to be sewed up; and the dogs’ traces had to be disentangled with great difficulty. On the 1st April they kept on the move so long that it was too late to wind up their chronometers. Johansen’s had stopped altogether, but Nansen’s was still ticking. The ice was now becoming worse and worse, and Nansen began to have doubts as to the wisdom of going northwards much longer.