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The sea party ten men took over the Fram, while on this day the land party took up their abode on the Barrier for a year or two, or whatever it might be. The sea party was composed of Nilsen, Gjertsen, Beck, Sundbeck, Ludvig Hansen, Kristensen, Rönne, Nödtvedt, Kutschin, and Olsen. The land party consisted of Prestrud, Johansen, Helmer Hanssen, Hassel, Bjaaland, Stubberud, Lindström, and myself.
The fore-cabin was washed and cleaned up till the Ripolin paint and the brass shone with equal brilliance; Rönne decorated the workroom with signal flags, and the good old "Happy Christmas" greeted us in a transparency over the door of the saloon. Inside Nilsen was busily engaged, showing great talents as a decorator. The gramophone was rigged up in my cabin on a board hung from the ceiling.
Captain Nilsen and I had worked out a kind of programme of the work to be done, and in this it was decided that the dogs should be brought on to the Barrier as quickly as possible, and there looked after by two men. We chose this place for the purpose. The old pressure ridges told the history of the spot plainly enough; we had no need to fear any kind of disturbance here.
But Captain Nilsen and the crew of the Fram have done more than this; they have carried out a work of research which in scientific value may be compared with what their comrades have accomplished in the unknown world of ice, although most people will not be able to recognize this.
As I have already mentioned, up to this time no member of the expedition, except Lieutenant Nilsen, knew anything of the extension of plan that had been made.
Besides which, a good understanding in this quarter gives an example to the whole ship. It was a great relief to me when Captain Nilsen came home in January, 1910, and was able to help which he did with a good will, a capability, and a reliability that I have no words to commend. The following was the plan of the Fram's southern voyage: Departure from Norway at latest before the middle of August.
I believe all who were on board will long remember that sultry afternoon in Funchal Roads. All hands were called on deck: what they thought of I do not know, but it was hardly Antarctica and the South Pole. Lieutenant Nilsen carried a big rolled-up chart; I could see that this chart was the object of many interrogative glances.
Presumably the weather had forced them to put out. We could also hear the roar of the sea dashing against the Barrier. Meanwhile we lost no time. The day before Captain Nilsen and Kristensen had shot forty seals, and of these we had brought in half the same day. We now began to fetch in the rest.
While Amundsen and his companions were passing the winter in the South, Captain Nilsen, in the Fram, investigated the ocean between South America and Africa. At no fewer than sixty stations they took a number of temperatures, samples of water, and specimens of the plankton in this little-known region, to a depth of 2,000 fathoms and more.
Simultaneously with our work on land, scientific observations were made on board the Fram by Captain Nilsen and his companions which probably stamp this expedition as the most valuable of all.
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