"Sat.u.r.day, March 10th. The line shows a drift northward; now, too, in the afternoon, a slight southerly breeze has sprung up. As usual, it has done me good to put my despondency on paper and get rid of it. To-day I am in good spirits again, and can indulge in happy dreams of a large and high land in the north with mountains and valleys, where we can sit under the mountain wall, roast ourselves in the sun, and see the spring come. And over its inland ice we can make our way to the very Pole.

"Sunday, March 11th. A snow-shoe run northward. Temperature -50 C. (58 Fahr. below zero), and 10 feet wind from N.N.E. We did not feel the cold very much, though it was rather bad for the stomach and thighs, as none of us had our wind trousers [47] on. We wore our usual dress of a pair of ordinary trousers and woollen pants, a shirt, and wolfskin cloak, or a common woollen suit with a light sealskin jacket over it. For the first time in my life I felt my thighs frozen, especially just over the knee, and on the kneecap; my companions also suffered in the same way. This was after going a long while against the wind. We rubbed our legs a little, and they soon got warm again; but had we kept on much longer without noticing it we should probably have been severely frost-bitten. In other respects we did not suffer the least inconvenience from the cold--on the contrary, found the temperature agreeable; and I am convinced that 10, 20, or even 30 lower would not have been unendurable. It is strange how one's sensations alter. When at home, I find it unpleasant if I only go out-of-doors when there are some 20 degrees of cold, even in calm weather. But here I don't find it any colder when I turn out in 50 degrees of cold, with a wind into the bargain. Sitting in a warm room at home one gets exaggerated ideas about the terribleness of the cold. It is really not in the least terrible; we all of us find ourselves very well in it, though sometimes one or another of us does not take quite so long a walk as usual when a strong wind is blowing, and will even turn back for the cold; but that is when he is only lightly clad and has no wind clothes on. This evening it is 51.2 Fahr. below zero, and 14 1/2 feet N.N.E. wind. Brilliant northern lights in the south. Already there is a very marked twilight even at midnight.

"Monday, March 12th. Slowly drifting southward. Took a long snow-shoe run alone, towards the north; to-day had on my wind breeches, but found them almost too warm. This morning it was 51.6 Fahr. below zero, and about 13 feet N. wind; at noon it was some degrees warmer. Ugh! this north wind is freshening; the barometer has risen again, and I had thought the wind would have changed, but it is and remains the same.

"This is what March brings us--the month on which my hopes relied. Now I must wait for the summer. Soon the half-year will be past, it will leave us about in the same place as when-it began. Ugh! I am weary--so weary! Let me sleep, sleep! Come, sleep! noiselessly close the door of the soul, stay the flowing stream of thought! Come dreams, and let the sun beam over the snowless strand of G.o.dthaab!

"Wednesday, March 14th. In the evening the dogs all at once began to bark, as we supposed on account of bears. Sverdrup and I took our guns, let 'Ulenka' and 'Pan' loose, and set off. There was twilight still, and the moon, moreover, began to shine. No sooner were the dogs on the ice than off they started westward like a couple of rockets, we after them as quickly as we could. As I was jumping over a lane I thrust one leg through the ice up to the knee. Oddly enough, I did not get wet through to the skin, though I only had Finn shoes and frieze gaiters on; but in this temperature, 38 Fahr. below zero (-39 C.), the water freezes on the cold cloth before it can penetrate it. I felt nothing of it afterwards; it became, as it were, a plate of ice armor that almost helped to keep me warm. At a channel some distance off we at last discovered that it was not a bear the dogs had winded, but either a walrus or a seal. We saw holes in several places on the fresh-formed ice where it had stuck its head through. What a wonderfully keen nose those dogs must have: it was quite two-thirds of a mile from the ship, and the creature had only had just a little bit of its snout above the ice. We returned to the ship to get a harpoon, but saw no more of the animal, though we went several times up and down the channel. Meanwhile 'Pan,' in his zeal, got too near the edge of the lane and fell into the water. The ice was so high that he could not get up on it again without help, and if I had not been there to haul him up I am afraid he would have been drowned. He is now lying in the saloon, and making himself comfortable and drying himself. But he, too, did not get wet through to the skin, though he was a good time in the water: the inner hair of his close, coa.r.s.e coat is quite dry and warm. The dogs look on it as a high treat to come in here, for they are not often allowed to do so. They go round all the cabins and look out for a comfortable corner to lie down in.

"Lovely weather, almost calm, sparklingly bright, and moonshine: in the north the faint flush of evening, and the aurora over the southern sky, now like a row of flaming spears, then changing into a silvery veil, undulating in wavy folds with the wind, every here and there interspersed with red sprays. These wonderful night effects are ever new, and never fail to captivate the soul."

"Thursday, March 15th. This morning 41.7, and at 8 P.M. 40.7 Fahr. below zero, while the daytime was rather warmer. At noon it was 40.5 and at 4 P.M. 39 Fahr. below zero. It would almost seem as if the sun began to have power.

"The dogs are strange creatures. This evening they are probably sweltering in their kennels again, for four or five of them are lying outside or on the roof. When there are 50 degrees of cold most of them huddle together inside, and lie as close to one another as possible. Then, too, they are very loath to go out for a walk; they prefer to lie in the sun under the lee of the ship. But now they find it so mild and such pleasant walking that to-day it was not difficult to get them to follow.

"Friday, March 16th. Sverdrup has of late been occupied in making sails for the ship's boats. To-day there was a light southwesterly breeze, so we tried one of the sails on two hand-sledges lashed together. It is first-rate sailing, and does not require much wind to make them glide along. This would be a great a.s.sistance if we had to go home over the ice.

"Wednesday, March 21st. At length a reaction has set in: the wind is S.E. and there is a strong drift northward again. The equinox is past, and we are not one degree farther north since the last equinox. I wonder where the next will find us. Should it be more to the south, then victory is uncertain; if more to the north, the battle is won, though it may last long. I am looking forward to the summer; it must bring a change with it. The open water we sailed in up here cannot possibly be produced by the melting of the ice alone; it must be also due to the winds and current. And if the ice in which we are now drifts so far to the north as to make room for all this open water, we shall have covered a good bit on our way. It would seem, indeed, as if summer must bring northerly winds, with the cold Arctic Sea in the north and warm Siberia in the south. This makes me somewhat dubious; but, on the other hand, we have warm seas in the west: they may be stronger; and the Jeannette, moreover, drifted northwest.

"It is strange that, notwithstanding these westerly winds, we do not drift eastward. The last longitude was only 135 east longitude.

"Maundy Thursday, March 22d. A strong southeasterly wind still, and a good drift northward. Our spirits are rising. The wind whistles through the rigging overhead, and sounds like the sough of victory through the air. In the forenoon one of the puppies had a severe attack of convulsions; it foamed at the mouth and bit furiously at everything round it. It ended with teta.n.u.s, and we carried it out and laid it down on the ice. It hopped about like a toad, its legs stiff and extended, neck and head pointing upward, while its back was curved like a saddle. I was afraid it might be hydrophobia or some other infectious sickness, and shot it on the spot. Perhaps I was rather too hasty; we can scarcely have any infection among us now. But what could it have been? Was it an epileptic attack? The other day one of the other puppies alarmed me by running round and round in the chart-house as if it were mad, hiding itself after a time between a chest and the wall. Some of the others, too, had seen it do the same thing; but after a while it got all right again, and for the last few days there has been nothing amiss with it.

"Good Friday, March 23d. Noonday observation gives 80 north lat.i.tude. In four days and nights we have drifted as far north as we drifted southward in three weeks. It is a comfort, at all events, to know that!

"It is remarkable how quickly the nights have grown light. Even stars of the first magnitude can now barely manage to twinkle in the pale sky at midnight.

"Sat.u.r.day, March 24th. Easter Eve. To-day a notable event has occurred. We have allowed the light of spring to enter the saloon. During the whole of the winter the skylight was covered with snow to keep the cold out, and the dogs' kennels, moreover, had been placed round it. Now we have thrown out all the snow upon the ice, and the panes of gla.s.s in the skylight have been duly cleared and cleaned.

"Monday, March 26th. We are lying motionless--no drift. How long will this last? Last equinox how proud and triumphant I was! The whole world looked bright; but now I am proud no longer.

"The sun mounts up and bathes the ice-plain with its radiance. Spring is coming, but brings no joys with it. Here it is as lonely and cold as ever. One's soul freezes. Seven more years of such life--or say only four--how will the soul appear then? And she...? If I dared to let my longings loose--to let my soul thaw. Ah! I long more than I dare confess.

"I have not courage to think of the future.... And how will it be at home, when year after year rolls by and no one comes?

"I know this is all a morbid mood; but still this inactive, lifeless monotony, without any change, wrings one's very soul. No struggle, no possibility of struggle! All is so still and dead, so stiff and shrunken, under the mantle of ice. Ah! ... the very soul freezes. What would I not give for a single day of struggle--for even a moment of danger!

"Still I must wait, and watch the drift; but should it take a wrong direction, then I will break all the bridges behind me, and stake everything on a northward march over the ice. I know nothing better to do. It will be a hazardous journey--a matter, maybe, of life or death. But have I any other choice?

"It is unworthy of a man to set himself a task, and then give in when the brunt of the battle is upon him. There is but one way, and that is Fram--forward.

"Tuesday, March 27th. We are again drifting southward, and the wind is northerly. The midday observation showed 80 4' north lat.i.tude. But why so dispirited? I am staring myself blind at one single point--am thinking solely of reaching the Pole and forcing our way through to the Atlantic Ocean. And all the time our real task is to explore the unknown polar regions. Are we doing nothing in the service of science? It will be a goodly collection of observations that we shall take home with us from this region, with which we are now rather too well acquainted. The rest is, and remains, a mere matter of vanity. 'Love truth more, and victory less.'

"I look at Eilif Peterssen's picture, a Norwegian pine forest, and I am there in spirit. How marvellously lovely it is there now, in the spring, in the dim, melancholy stillness that reigns among the stately stems! I can feel the damp moss in which my foot sinks softly and noiselessly; the brook, released from the winter bondage, is murmuring through the clefts and among the rocks, with its brownish-yellow water; the air is full of the scent of moss and pine-needles; while overhead, against the light-blue sky, the dark pine-tops rock to and fro in the spring breeze, ever uttering their murmuring wail, and beneath their shelter the soul fearlessly expands its wings and cools itself in the forest dew.

"O solemn pine forest, the only confidant of my childhood, it was from you I learned nature's deepest tones--its wildness, its melancholy! You colored my soul for life.

"Alone--far in the forest--beside the glowing embers of my fire on the sh.o.r.e of the silent, murky woodland tarn, with the gloom of night overhead, how happy I used to be in the enjoyment of nature's harmony!

"Thursday, March 29th. It is wonderful what a change it makes to have daylight once more in the saloon. On turning out for breakfast and seeing the light gleaming in, one feels that it really is morning.

"We are busy on board. Sails are being made for the boats and hand-sledges. The windmill, too, is to have fresh sails, so that it can go in any kind of weather. Ah, if we could but give the Fram wings as well! Knives are being forged, bear-spears which we never have any use for, bear-traps in which we never catch a bear, axes, and many other things of like usefulness. For the moment there is a great manufacture of wooden shoes going on, and a newly started nail-making industry. The only shareholders in this company are Sverdrup and Smith Lars, called 'Storm King,' because he always comes upon us like hard weather. The output is excellent and is in active demand, as all our small nails for the hand-sledge fittings have been used. Moreover, we are very busy putting German-silver plates under the runners of the hand-sledges, and providing appliances for lashing sledges together. There is, moreover, a workshop for snow-shoe fastenings, and a tinsmith's shop, busied for the moment with repairs to the lamps. Our doctor, too, for lack of patients, has set up a bookbinding establishment which is greatly patronized by the Fram's library, whereof several books that are in constant circulation, such as Gjest Baardsens Liv og Levnet, etc., are in a very bad state. We have also a saddlers' and sail-makers'

workshop, a photographic studio, etc. The manufacture of diaries, however, is the most extensive--every man on board works at that. In fine, there is nothing between heaven and earth that we cannot turn out--excepting constant fair winds.

"Our workshops can be highly recommended; they turn out good solid work. We have lately had a notable addition to our industries, the firm 'Nansen & Amundsen' having established a music-factory. The cardboard plates of the organ had suffered greatly from wear and damp, so that we had been deplorably short of music during the winter. But yesterday I set to work in earnest to manufacture a plate of zinc. It answers admirably, and now we shall go ahead with music sacred and profane, especially waltzes, and these halls shall once more resound with the pealing tones of the organ, to our great comfort and edification. When a waltz is struck up it breathes fresh life into many of the inmates of the Fram.

"I complain of the wearing monotony of our surroundings; but in reality I am unjust. The last few days, dazzling sunshine over the snow-hills; to-day, snow-storm and wind, the Fram enveloped in a whirl of foaming white snow. Soon the sun appears again, and the waste around gleams as before.

"Here, too, there is sentiment in nature. How often, when least thinking of it, do I find myself pause, spell-bound by the marvellous hues which evening wears. The ice-hills steeped in bluish-violet shadows, against the orange-tinted sky, illumined by the glow of the setting sun, form as it were a strange color-poem, imprinting an ineffaceable picture on the soul. And these bright, dream-like nights, how many a.s.sociations they have for us Northmen! One pictures to one's self those mornings in spring when one went out into the forest after blackc.o.c.k, under the dim stars, and with the pale crescent moon peering over the tree-tops. Dawn, with its glowing hues up here in the north, is the breaking of a spring day over the forest wilds at home; the hazy blue vapor beneath the morning glow turns to the fresh early mist over the marshes; the dark low clouds on a background of dim red seem like distant ranges of hills.

"Daylight here, with its rigid, lifeless whiteness, has no attractions; but the evening and night thaw the heart of this world of ice; it dreams mournful dreams, and you seem to hear in the hues of the evening sounds of its smothered wail. Soon these will cease, and the sun will circle round the everlasting light-blue expanse of heaven, imparting one uniform color to day and night alike.

"Friday, April 6th. A remarkable event was to take place to-day which, naturally, we all looked forward to with lively interest. It was an eclipse of the sun. During the night Hansen had made a calculation that the eclipse would begin at 12.56 o'clock. It was important for us to be able to get a good observation, as we should thus be able to regulate our chronometers to a nicety. In order to make everything sure, we set up our instruments a couple of hours beforehand, and commenced to observe. We used the large telescope and our large theodolite. Hansen, Johansen, and myself took it by turns to sit for five minutes each at the instruments, watching the rim of the sun, as we expected a shadow would become visible on its lower western edge, while another stood by with the watch. We remained thus full two hours without anything occurring. The exciting moment was now at hand, when, according to calculation, the shadow should first be apparent. Hansen was sitting by the large telescope when he thought he could discern a quivering in the sun's rim; 33 seconds afterwards he cried out, 'Now!' as did Johansen simultaneously. The watch was then at 12 hrs. 56 min. 7.5 sec. A dark body advanced over the border of the sun 7 1/2 seconds later than we had calculated on. It was an immense satisfaction for us all, especially for Hansen, for it proved our chronometers to be in excellent order. Little by little the sunlight sensibly faded away, while we went below to dinner. At 2 o'clock the eclipse was at its height, and we could notice even down in the saloon how the daylight had diminished. After dinner we observed the moment when the eclipse ended, and the moon's dark disk cleared the rim of the sun.

"Sunday, April 8th. I was lying awake yesterday morning thinking about getting up, when all at once I heard the hurried footsteps of some one running over the half-deck above me, and then another followed. There was something in those footsteps that involuntarily made me think of bears, and I had a hazy sort of an idea that I ought to jump up out of bed, but I lay still, listening for the report of a gun. I heard nothing, however, and soon fell a-dreaming again. Presently Johansen came tearing down into the saloon, crying out that a couple of bears were lying half or quite dead on the large ice hummock astern of the ship. He and Mogstad had shot at them, but they had no more cartridges left. Several of the men seized hold of their guns and hurried up. I threw on my clothes and came up a little after, when I gathered that the bears had taken to flight, as I could see the other fellows following them over the ice. As I was putting on my snow-shoes they returned, and said that the bears had made off. However, I started after them as fast as my snow-shoes would take me across the floes and the pressure-ridges. I soon got on their tracks, which at first were a little blood-stained. It was a she-bear, with her cub, and, as I believed, hard hit--the she-bear had fallen down several times after Johansen's first bullet. I thought, therefore, it would be no difficult matter to overtake them. Several of the dogs were on ahead of me on their tracks. They had taken a northwesterly course, and I toiled on, perspiring profusely in the sun, while the ship sank deeper and deeper down below the horizon. The surface of the snow, sparkling with its eternal whiteness all around me, tried my eyes severely, and I seemed to get no nearer the bears. My prospects of coming up with them were ruined by the dogs, who were keen enough to frighten the bears, but not so keen as to press on and bring them to bay. I would not, however, give up. Presently a fog came on and hid everything from view except the bear-tracks, which steadily pointed forward; then it lifted, and the sun shone out again clear and bright as before. The Fram's masts had long since disappeared over the edge of the ice, but still I kept on. Presently, however, I began to feel faint and hungry, for in my hurry I had not even had my breakfast, and at last had to bite the sour apple and turn back without any bears.

"On my way I came across a remarkable hummock. It was over 20 feet in height (I could not manage to measure it quite to the top); the middle part had fallen in, probably from pressure of the ice, while the remaining part formed a magnificent triumphal arch of the whitest marble, on which the sun glittered with all its brilliancy. Was it erected to celebrate my defeat? I got up on it to look out for the Fram, but had to go some distance yet before I could see her rigging over the horizon. It was not till half-past five in the afternoon that I found myself on board again, worn out and famished from this sudden and unexpected excursion. After a day's fasting I heartily relished a good meal. During my absence some of the others had started after me with a sledge to draw home the dead bears that I had shot; but they had barely reached the spot where the encounter had taken place, when Johansen and Blessing, who were in advance of the others, saw two fresh bears spring up from behind a hummock a little way off. But before they could get their guns in readiness the bears were out of range; so a new hunt began. Johansen tore after them in his snow-shoes, but several of the dogs got in front of him and kept the bears going, so that he could not get within range, and his chase ended as fruitlessly as mine.

"Has good-luck abandoned us? I had plumed myself on our never having shot at a single bear without bagging it; but to-day...! Odd that we should get a visit from four bears on one day, after having seen nothing of them for three months! Does it signify something? Have we got near the land in the northwest which I have so long expected? There seems to be change in the air. An observation the day before yesterday gave 80 15' north lat.i.tude, the most northerly we have had yet.

"Sunday, April 15th. So we are in the middle of April! What a ring of joy in that word, a well-spring of happiness! Visions of spring rise up in the soul at its very mention--a time when doors and windows are thrown wide open to the spring air and sun, and the dust of winter is blown away; a time when one can no longer sit still, but must perforce go out-of-doors to inhale the perfume of wood and field and fresh-dug earth, and behold the fjord, free from ice, sparkling in the sunlight. What an inexhaustible fund of the awakening joys of nature does that word April contain! But here--here that is not to be found. True, the sun shines long and bright, but its beams fall not on forest or mountain or meadow, but only on the dazzling whiteness of the fresh-fallen snow. Scarcely does it entice one out from one's winter retreat. This is not the time of revolutions here. If they come at all, they will come much later. The days roll on uniformly and monotonously; here I sit, and feel no touch of the restless longings of the spring, and shut myself up in the snail-sh.e.l.l of my studies. Day after day I dive down into the world of the microscope, forgetful of time and surroundings. Now and then, indeed, I may make a little excursion from darkness to light--the daylight beams around me, and my soul opens a tiny loophole for light and courage to enter in--and then down, down into the darkness, and to work once more. Before turning in for the night I must go on deck. A little while ago the daylight would by this time have vanished, a few solitary stars would have been faintly twinkling, while the pale moon shone over the ice. But now even this has come to an end. The sun no longer sinks beneath the icy horizon; it is continual day. I gaze into the far distance, far over the barren plain of snow, a boundless, silent, and lifeless ma.s.s of ice in imperceptible motion. No sound can be heard save the faint murmur of the air through the rigging, or perhaps far away the low rumble of packing ice. In the midst of this empty waste of white there is but one little dark spot, and that is the Fram.

"But beneath this crust, hundreds of fathoms down, there teems a world of checkered life in all its changing forms, a world of the same composition as ours, with the same instincts, the same sorrows, and also, no doubt, the same joys; everywhere the same struggle for existence. So it ever is. If we penetrate within even the hardest sh.e.l.l we come upon the pulsations of life, however thick the crust may be.

"I seem to be sitting here in solitude listening to the music of one of Nature's mighty harp-strings. Her grand symphonies peal forth through the endless ages of the universe, now in the tumultuous whirl of busy life, now in the stiffening coldness of death, as in Chopin's Funeral March; and we--we are the minute, invisible vibrations of the strings in this mighty music of the universe, ever changing, yet ever the same. Its notes are worlds; one vibrates for a longer, another for a shorter period, and all in turn give way to new ones....

"The world that shall be!... Again and again this thought comes back to my mind. I gaze far on through the ages....

"Slowly and imperceptibly the heat of the sun declines, and the temperature of the earth sinks by equally slow degrees. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years pa.s.s away, glacial epochs come and go, but the heat still grows ever less; little by little these drifting ma.s.ses of ice extend far and wide, ever towards more southern sh.o.r.es, and no one notices it; but at last all the seas of earth become one unbroken ma.s.s of ice. Life has vanished from its surface, and is to be found in the ocean depths alone.

"But the temperature continues to fall, the ice grows thicker and ever thicker; life's domain vanishes. Millions of years roll on, and the ice reaches the bottom. The last trace of life has disappeared; the earth is covered with snow. All that we lived for is no longer; the fruit of all our toil and sufferings has been blotted out millions and millions of years ago, buried beneath a pall of snow. A stiffened, lifeless ma.s.s of ice, this earth rolls on in her path through eternity. Like a faintly growing disk the sun crosses the sky; the moon shines no more, and is scarcely visible. Yet still, perhaps, the northern lights flicker over the desert, icy plain, and still the stars twinkle in silence, peacefully as of yore. Some have burnt out, but new ones usurp their place; and round them revolve new spheres, teeming with new life, new sufferings, without any aim. Such is the infinite cycle of eternity; such are nature's everlasting rhythms.

"Monday, April 30th. Drifting northward. Yesterday observations gave 80 42', and to-day 80 44 1/2'. The wind steady from the south and southeast.

"It is lovely spring weather. One feels that spring-time must have come, though the thermometer denies it. 'Spring cleaning' has begun on board; the snow and ice along the Fram's sides are cleared away, and she stands out like the crags from their winter covering decked with the flowers of spring. The snow lying on the deck is little by little shovelled overboard; her rigging rises up against the clear sky clean and dark, and the gilt trucks at her mastheads sparkle in the sun. We go and bathe ourselves in the broiling sun along her warm sides, where the thermometer is actually above freezing-point, smoke a peaceful pipe, gazing at the white spring clouds that lightly fleet across the blue expanse. Some of us perhaps think of spring-time yonder at home, when the birch-trees are bursting into leaf."

CHAPTER VII

THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF 1894

So came the season which we at home call spring, the season of joy and budding life, when Nature awakens after her long winter sleep. But there it brought no change; day after day we had to gaze over the same white lifeless ma.s.s, the same white boundless ice-plains. Still we wavered between despondency, idle longing, and eager energy, shifting with the winds as we drift forward to our goal or are driven back from it. As before, I continued to brood upon the possibilities of the future and of our drift. One day I would think that everything was going on as we hoped and antic.i.p.ated. Thus on April 17th I was convinced that there must be a current through the unknown polar basin, as we were unmistakably drifting northward. The midday observation gave 80 20' northeast; that is, 9' since the day before yesterday. Strange! A north wind of four whole days took us to the south, while twenty-four hours of this scanty wind drifts us 9' northward. This is remarkable; it looks as if we were done with drifting southward. And when, in addition to this, I take into consideration the striking warmth of the water deep down, it seems to me that things are really looking brighter. The reasoning runs as follows: The temperature of the water in the East Greenland current, even on the surface, is nowhere over zero (the mean temperature for the year), and appears generally to be -1 C. (30.2 Fahr.), even in 70 north lat.i.tude. In this lat.i.tude the temperature steadily falls as you get below the surface; nowhere at a greater depth than 100 fathoms is it above -1 C., and generally from -1.5 (29.3 Fahr.) to -1.7 C. (28.94 Fahr.) right to the bottom. Moreover, the bottom temperature of the whole sea north of the 60th degree of lat.i.tude is under -1 C., a strip along the Norwegian coast and between Norway and Spitzbergen alone excepted, but here the temperature is over -1 C., from 86 fathoms (160 metres) downward, and 135 fathoms (250 metres) the temperature is already +0.55 C. (32.99 Fahr.), and that, too, be it remarked, north of the 80th degree of lat.i.tude, and in a sea surrounding the pole of maximum cold.