foundation. The difference between the two strata was in this
case so great that while we had drinking water on the surface,
the water we got from the bottom cock of the engine-room was far
too salt to be used for the boiler."]

We had scarcely appeased our hunger when a breeze began filling
the idle sails, and, glancing at the compass, we found the
northern point pressing hard against the glass.

In response to my surprise, my father said, "I have heard of this
before; it is what they call the dipping of the needle."

We loosened the compass and turned it at right angles with the
surface of the sea before its point would free itself from the
glass and point according to unmolested attraction. It shifted
uneasily, and seemed as unsteady as a drunken man, but finally
pointed a course.

Before this we thought the wind was carrying us north by
northwest, but, with the needle free, we discovered, if it could
be relied upon, that we were sailing slightly north by
northeast. Our course, however, was ever tending northward.[12]

[12 In volume II, pages 18 and 19, Nansen
writes about the inclination of the needle. Speaking of Johnson,
his aide: "One day -- it was November 24 -- he came in to
supper a little after six o'clock, quite alarmed, and said:
'There has just been a singular inclination of the needle in
twenty-four degrees. And remarkably enough, its northern
extremity pointed to the east.'"