the bottom.

In the ice she behaved exactly as Nansen had expected she would, and,
once frozen to the ice, gave the explorer no anxiety that she would be
crushed or wrecked.

For three long years Nansen and his party were away on their expedition.
Steaming from Norway to the coast of Siberia, where he took his pack of
dogs on board, Nansen headed for the Polar Sea, and made all the speed
he could to reach the farthest north possible before the winter set in,
and was finally frozen into the ice where he supposed the current must
be which was to bear him across the North Pole.

To his infinite joy, he found, after weeks of uncertainty, that he was
actually drifting with the ice, and that his theory was correct.

He did not go as directly north as he had hoped, and on March 14th,
1896, after nearly three years of patient drifting, he made up his mind
that the _Fram_ had gone as far north as she would go, and that
henceforth she would take a southerly course.

He was but three hundred and fifty miles from the Pole, and he
determined to make an effort to reach it himself, with the aid of his
dogs and kayaks.

He therefore left the _Fram_, and, with but one man to bear him company,
he made a dash for the Pole.

He succeeded in covering ninety-five miles of the unknown ocean, and
reached within two hundred and sixty-one miles of the Pole, but here he