There were, however, many sources of amusement open to the voyagers.  They were near the coast and supplied with everything that could render their life comfortable in that latitude.  They could take sleigh-rides and see in the distance the whales enjoying their diversions.  The summer solstice was approaching.  Since the fifteenth the occupants of the “Alaska” had beheld a new and astonishing spectacle, even for Norwegians and the natives of southern Sweden; it was the sun at midnight touching the horizon without disappearing and then mounting again in the sky.  In these high latitudes and desolate coasts the star of day describes in twenty-four hours a complete circle in space.  The light, it is true, is pale and languishing, objects lose their perfect shape, and all nature has a shadowy appearance.  One realizes profoundly how far he is removed from the world, and how near he is to the pole.  The cold, however, was not extreme.  The temperature did not fall more than four or five degrees below zero, and the air was sometimes so mild that they could hardly believe that they were in the center of the arctic zone.

But those novel surrounding were not sufficient to satisfy Erik, or make him lose sight of the supreme object which had brought them there.  He had not come to herbalize like Mr. Malarius, who returned every evening more and more delighted with his explorations, both of the country and of its unknown plants, which he added to his collection; nor to enjoy with Dr. Schwaryencrona and Mr. Bredejord the novelty of the sights which nature offered to them in these polar regions.  He wanted to find Nordenskiold and Patrick O’Donoghan—­to fulfill a sacred duty while he discovered, perhaps, the secret of his birth.  This was why he sought untiringly to break the circle of ice which hemmed them in.  He made excursions with his sleigh and on his snow-shoes, reconnoitered in every direction for ten days, but it was all in vain.  At the west, as well as the north and east, the banks of ice remained firm.

It was the 20th of June, and they were still far from the Siberian Sea.

Must he confess himself vanquished?  Erik could not make up his mind to do this.  Repeated soundings had revealed that under the ice there was a swift current running toward Franklin’s Strait, that is to say toward the south; he told himself that some effort might suffice to break up the ice, and he resolved to attempt it.

For the length of seven marine miles he had hollowed in the ice a series of chambers, and in each of them was placed a kilogramme of dynamite.  These were connected by a copper wire inclosed in gutta percha.