he afternoon I examined the melted water of the newly formed
brownish-red ice, of which there is a good deal in the openings round
us here. The microscope proved this color to be produced by swarms of
small organisms, chiefly plants--quantities of diatomae and some algae,
a few of them very peculiar in form.

"Saturday, October 21st. I have stayed in to-day because of an
affection of the muscles, or rheumatism, which I have had for some days
on the right side of my body, and for which the doctor is 'massaging'
me, thereby greatly adding to my sufferings. Have I really grown so
old and palsied, or is the whole thing imagination? It is all I can do
to limp about; but I just wonder if I could not get up and run with
the best of them if there happened to be any great occasion for it:
I almost believe I could. A nice Arctic hero of 32, lying here in my
berth! Have had a good time reading home letters, dreaming myself at
home, dreaming of the home-coming--in how many years? Successful or
unsuccessful, what does that matter?

"I had a sounding taken; it showed over 73 fathoms (135 m.), so we are
in deeper water again. The sounding-line indicated that we are drifting
southwest. I do not understand this steady drift southward. There has
not been much wind either lately; there is certainly a little from
the north to-day, but not strong. What can be the reason of it? With
all my information, all my reasoning, all my putting of two and two
together, I cannot account for any south-going current here--there
ought to be a north-going one. If the current runs south here, how
is that great open sea we steamed north across to be explained? and
the bay we ended in farthest north? These could only be produced by
the north-going current which I presupposed. The only thing which
puts me out a bit is that west-going current which we had against us
during our whole voyage along the Siberian coast. We are never going
to be carried away south by the New Siberian Islands, and then west
along the coast of Siberia, and then north by Cape Chelyuskin, the
very way we came! That would be rather too much of a good thing--to
say nothing of its being dead against every calculation.

"Well, who cares? Somewhere we must go; we can't stay here forever. 'It
will all come right in the end,' as the saying goes; but I wish we
could get on a little faster wherever we are going. On our Greenland
expedition, too, we were carried south to begin with, and that
en