ims were made for the new land that Commander De Long, U. S. N.,
determined to explore it and use it as a base for gaining the Pole. But
his ship, the _Jeannette_, was caught in the ice (September, 1879) and
carried right through the place where the new continent was supposed to
be. For nearly two years De Long's party remained helpless prisoners
until in June, 1881, the ship was crushed and sank, forcing the men to
take refuge on the ice floes in mid ocean, 150 miles from the New
Siberian Islands. They saved several boats and sledges and a small
supply of provisions and water. After incredible hardships and
suffering, G. W. Melville, the chief engineer, who was in charge of one
of the boats, with nine men, reached, on September 26, a Russian
village on the Lena. All the others perished, some being lost at sea, by
the foundering of the boats, while others, including De Long, had
starved to death after reaching the desolate Siberian coast.

Three years later some Eskimos found washed ashore on the southeast
coast of Greenland several broken biscuit boxes and lists of stores,
which are said to be in De Long's handwriting. The startling
circumstance that these relics in their long drift from where the ship
sank had necessarily passed across or very near to the Pole aroused
great speculation as to the probable currents in the polar area. Nansen,
who had already made the first crossing of Greenland's ice cap, argued
that the same current which had guided the relics on their long journey
would similarly conduct a ship. He therefore constructed a unique craft,
the _Fram_, so designed that when hugged by the ice pack she would not
be crushed, but would be lifted up and rest on the ice; he provisioned
the vessel for five years and allowed her to be frozen in the ice near
where the _Jeannette_ had sunk, 78 deg. 50' N., 134 deg. E. (September 25,
1893). When at the end of eighteen months the ship had approached 314
miles nearer to the Pole, Nansen and one companion, Johansen, with
kayaks, dogs, sledges, and three months' provisions, deliberately left
the ship and plunged northward toward the Pole, March 14, 1895. In
twenty-three days the two men had overcome one-third of the distance to
the Pole, reaching 86 deg. 12'. To continue onward would have meant certain
death, so they turned back. When their watches ran down Providence
guided them, and the marvelous physique of both sustained them through
fog and storm and threatened starva