Note 9 — Chapter V · A Hard Struggle

“During breakfast this morning I went out and took a meridian altitude. It proves that we have not deceived ourselves. We are in latitude 82° 30′ N., perhaps even a minute or two farther south. But it is growing more and more remarkable that we see no sign of land. I cannot explain it in any other way than that we are some degrees farther east than we suppose.9 That we should be so much farther west as to enable us to pass entirely clear of Petermann’s Land and Oscar’s Land, and not so much as get a glimpse of them, I consider an impossibility. I have again looked at our former observations; have again gone through our dead reckoning, the velocity and directions of the wind, and all the possibilities of drift during the days which passed between our last certain observation for longitude (April 8th) and the day when, according to the dead reckoning, we assumed ourselves to be in longitude 86° E. (April 13th). That there should be any great mistake is inconceivable. The ice can hardly have had such a considerable drift during those particular days, seeing that our dead reckoning in other respects tallied so well with the observations.