Farthest North.

Manawatu Herald, 1 May 1897, Page 3

Farthest North.

(Continued.)

1 loiifle the Fram everything was ■one to protect the crew from exter■ftl cold, the ceilings, floors and Villa of the saloon were covered Bith several thick coatings of non■ndacting material, the sides of the Hfp were lined with tarred felt, then Hta a space with cork padding, Hatt a deal panelling, then a thick Bmr of felt, next air-tight linoleum, last of all an inner panelling, ■f sity light had three panes of HttoDe witbia the other. Each; coippanion ways had four Bl tmall doora consisting of several

layers of wood with felt between them. She was fitted up with electric light and they took with them sixty tons of petroleum and twenty tons of common kerosene.

At Vardoe, where the crew sailed away to the far north they had their last bath, a peculiar one. They laid down on shelves in a room and were parboiled with hot steam kept up by water being thrown on the glowing hot stones of an awful oven, while young girls flogged them with birch twigs.

The Fiam reached the most nor them point of the Old World on September lOtb, 1893. On March 13th, 1895, Nansen and Johansen left the Fram with twenty-eight dogs, three sledges, and two kayaks or Eskimo boats for the purpose of journeying to the North Pole. It waa near mid-summer 1896 when these two men met the Jackson* Harmsworth expedition. They ar* rived in Norway only a few days ahead of the Fram. During the whole of the long drift, the Fram had stood the strain and more than fulfilled the expectations of her builder and designer. The met) on board were extremely comfortable, suffering nothing from scurvy or other diseases. Although the ice was packed round her and under her to the depth of thirty feet, she neither strained a timber nor injured her rudder.