"'Ed. Framsjaa.'

"Yesterday's observation placed us in 79 deg. 0' north latitude, 139 deg. 14'
east longitude. At last, then, we have got as far north again as we
were in the end of September, and now the northerly drift seems to
be steady: 10 minutes in 4 days.

"Monday, December 11th. This morning I took a long excursion to
westward. It is hard work struggling over the packed ice in the
dark, something like scrambling about a moraine of big boulders at
night. Once I took a step in the air, fell forward, and bruised my
right knee. It is mild to-day, only 9 1/2 deg. below zero (-23 deg. C.). This
evening there was a strange appearance of aurora borealis--white,
shining clouds, which I thought at first must be lit up by the moon,
but there is no moon yet. They were light cumuli, or cirro-cumuli,
shifting into a brightly shining mackerel sky. I stood and watched them
as long as my thin clothing permitted, but there was no perceptible
pulsation, no play of flame; they sailed quietly on. The light seemed
to be strongest in the southeast, where there were also dark clouds to
be seen. Hansen said that it moved over later into the northern sky;
clouds came and went, and for a time there were many white shining
ones--'white as lambs,' he called them--but no aurora played behind
them.

"In this day's meteorological journal I find noted for 4 P.M.: 'Faint
aurora borealis in the north. Some distinct branchings or antlers
(they are of ribbon crimped like blond) in some diffused patches on the
horizon in the N.N.E.' In his aurora borealis journal Hansen describes
that of this evening as follows: 'About 8 P.M. an aurora borealis arch
of light was observed, stretching from E.S.E. to N.W., through the
zenith; diffused quiet intensity 3-4 most intense in N.W. The arch
spread at the zenith by a wave to the south. At 10 o'clock there was
a fainter aurora borealis in the southern sky; eight minutes later it
extended to the zenith, and two minutes after this there was a shining
broad arch across the zenith with intensity 6. Twelve seconds later
flaming rays shot from the zenith in an easterly direction. During
the next half-hour there was constant aurora, chiefly in bands across
or near the zenith, or lower in the southern sky. The observation
ended about 10.38. The intensity was then 2, the aurora diffused
over the southern sky. There were cumulus clouds of varying closeness
all the time. They came up in the southeast at the begi