take his oath anywhere that it was Peter's ball that
did the deed. The dispute upon this weighty point remained unsettled
during the whole course of the expedition.

"Beautiful moonlight. Pressure in several directions. To-day we carried
our supply of gun-cotton and cannon and rifle powder on deck. It is
safer there than in the hold. In case of fire or other accident,
an explosion in the hold might blow the ship's sides out and send
us to the bottom before we had time to turn round. Some we put on
the forecastle, some on the bridge. From these places it would be
quickly thrown on to the ice.

"Saturday, December 23d. What we call in Norway 'Little
Christmas-eve.' I went a long way west this morning, coming home
late. There was packed up ice everywhere, with flat floes between. I
was turned by a newly formed opening in the ice, which I dared not
cross on the thin layer of fresh ice. In the afternoon, as a first
Christmas entertainment, we tried an ice-blasting with four prisms
of gun-cotton. A hole was made with one of the large iron drills we
had brought with us for this purpose, and the charge, with the end
of the electric connecting wire, was sunk about a foot below the
surface of the ice. Then all retired, the knob was touched, there
was a dull crash, and water and pieces of ice were shot up into the
air. Although it was 60 yards off, it gave the ship a good jerk that
shook everything on board, and brought the hoar-frost down from the
rigging. The explosion blew a hole through the four-feet-thick ice,
but its only other effect was to make small cracks round this hole.

"Sunday, December 24th (Christmas-eve), 67 degrees of cold (-37 deg.
C.). Glittering moonlight and the endless stillness of the Arctic
night. I took a solitary stroll over the ice. The first Christmas-eve,
and how far away! The observation shows us to be in 79 deg. 11' north
latitude. There is no drift. Two minutes farther south than six
days ago."

There are no further particulars given of this day in the diary;
but when I think of it, how clearly it all comes back to me! There
was a peculiar elevation of mood on board that was not at all common
among us. Every man's inmost thoughts were with those at home; but
his comrades were not to know that, and so there was more joking
and laughing than usual. All the lamps and lights we had on board
were lit, and every corner of the saloon and cabins was brilliantly
illuminated. The bill of fare for the da