Note 1 — Chapter VIII · Second Autumn in the Ice

Somewhat later I write of the same apparatus: “We are now using the galley again, with the coal-oil fire; the moving down took place the day before yesterday,1 and the fire was used yesterday. It works capitally; a three-foot wind is enough to give a splendid draught. The day before yesterday, when I was sitting with some of the others in the saloon in the afternoon, I heard a dull report out in the galley, and said at once that it sounded like an explosion. Presently Pettersen2 stuck a head in at the door as black as a sweep’s, great lumps of soot all over it, and said that the stove had exploded right into his face; he was only going to look if it was burning rightly, and the whole fiendish thing flew out at him. A stream of words not unmingled with oaths flowed like peas out of a sack, while the rest of us yelled with laughter. In the galley it was easy to see that something had happened; the walls were covered with soot in lumps and stripes pointing towards the fireplace. The explanation of the accident was simple enough. The draught had been insufficient, and a quantity of gas had formed which had not been able to burn until air was let in by Pettersen opening the door.