During the winter, and a part of the advancing summer, we have made various guesses as to when the bark would be liberated from the grasp of the pack. The captain has set the day of departure at October 25; I at November 15; Amundsen, February 1. Both the captain and I are already overruled, and there is even some fear of a possible second winter. Yesterday a lead made its appearance 100 metres to the east, running north, and for the past few weeks we have watched with considerable interest the slow but persistent diminution of our pan. From its original nearly circular form, five miles across and three metres thick, it has dwindled to less than one-half its original size, and even the thickness of the ice is rapidly decreasing. The temperature has gradually ascended, with very many irregular curves, from an average in September of -18° to -3° C. now. But the change has been so irregular that the effect has hardly been felt. During the entire winter and throughout the year, though snow fell almost every day, even on the brightest and the clearest days, the total snowfall seemed small at all times. There are two reasons for this. First, the actual snow-showers, as seen in temperate regions, periods when much snow falls within a short time, were quite unknown. Second, the topography of the pack is such that every wind carries before it huge drifts of snow which it deposits in open leads, where it is either melted or converted into ice at once. During the blackness of the night, and during the endless gray snow-days since, we have constantly longed for a fair old-time snow-storm: a storm bringing sufficient snow to blanket the ship and keep us warm inside: a gentle, quiet fall of large, soft flakes to soften the hard outlines of the pack, and without the ever accompanying thunder of winds and whizzing, cutting, maddening ice-crystals. But such a pleasure has not been mixed with our assigned experiences. I think it is Nansen who says “the snowless ice-plain is like a life without love,” and in this there is a truth which can only be realised by men who, like us, are imprisoned in the polar pack. The constant war of the winds, which here strive for a place, brings about a restless agitation of the ice. Now it is driven east, then north, then south, and so on, tearing the floes, crushing pans, crowding huge pieces over each other, making hummocks, cliffs, ridges, crevasses, and what not; a veritable chaos of icy destruction, a surface impassable for a journey, and unpleasant to the eye.