n quotes Melville,
who speaks of ice "50 feet high, etc." (something we did not discover,
by-the-way, during the whole of our voyage).

After giving still more conclusive proofs that the Fram must inevitably
go to the bottom as soon as it should be exposed to the pressure of
the ice, he goes on to refer to the impossibility of drifting in the
ice with boats. And he concludes his article with the remark that
"Arctic exploration is sufficiently credited with rashness and danger
in its legitimate and sanctioned methods, without bearing the burden
of Dr. Nansen's illogical scheme of self-destruction."

From an article Greely wrote after our return home, in Harper's Weekly
for September 19th, 1896, he appears to have come to the conclusion
that the Jeannette relics were genuine and that the assumption of
their drift may have been correct, mentioning "Melville, Dall, and
others" as not believing in them. He allows also that my scheme has
been carried out in spite of what he had said. This time he concludes
the article as follows: "In contrasting the expeditions of De Long and
Nansen, it is necessary to allude to the single blemish that mars the
otherwise magnificent career of Nansen, who deliberately quitted his
comrades on the ice-beset ship hundreds of miles from any known land,
with the intention of not returning, but, in his own reported words,
'to go to Spitzbergen, where he felt certain to find a ship,' 600
miles away. De Long and Ambler had such a sense of honor that they
sacrificed their lives rather than separate themselves from a dying
man, whom their presence could not save. It passes comprehension how
Nansen could have thus deviated from the most sacred duty devolving on
the commander of a naval expedition. The safe return of brave Captain
Sverdrup with the Fram does not excuse Nansen. Sverdrup's consistency,
courage, and skill in holding fast to the Fram and bringing his
comrades back to Norway will win for him, in the minds of many,
laurels even brighter than those of his able and accomplished chief."

One of the few who publicly gave to my plan the support of his
scientific authority was Professor Supan, the well-known editor
of Petermann's Mitteilungen. In an article in this journal for 1891
(p. 191), he not only spoke warmly in its favor, but supported it with
new suggestions. His view was that what he terms the Arctic "wind-shed"
probably for the greater part of the year divides the unknown polar
basin in