NANSEN, Fridtjof, fret'yOf nan'sen, Nor wegian Arctic explorer: b. Great Froen, near Christiania, 10 Oct. 1861. He studied at Chris tiania University and in 1882 made an Arctic voyage in a sealing vessel in order to have op portunities of studying animal life in the higher latitudes. On his return he was appointed cu rator of the Bergen Natural History. Museum. In 1888 he crossed Greenland from sea to sea a little north of latitude 64°, an account of this journey being published in England in 1890, under the title 'Across Greenland.' He re turned in 1889 and was appointed curator of the Museum of Comparative Anatomy in Christiania University. In 1893 he sailed on board a spe cially built steamer (the Fram) in the expecta tion that, entering the Polar ice in the neighbor hood of the New Siberian Islands, he would be drifted by a current over the Pole and would come out on the east side of Greenland. This expectation was based on the fact that articles belonging to the Jeannette, an Arctic expedition vessel lost in 1881, had drifted in about three years from Bering Strait across the Polar re gions to Greenland. After being carried to lat. 83" 59', he left the From and crew, and with a single companion, Lieutenant Johansen, and with sledges, dogs and kayaks, took the ice. In this way he reached a higher latitude than any previously attained, 86° 14' (8 April 1895), and then turned southwestward to Franz Josef Land. There he spent the winter of 18.95-96,
and on 17 June 1896 fell in with members of the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition, with which he returned to Vara. The Frani, under Captain Sverdrup, had reached lat.. 85° 57', and had been for four months fast in the ice. Nansen was re ceived everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm and medals and other honors were conferred upon him, including a professorship of zoology in Christiania University. In 1897 he published an account of his voyage, which appeared in Eng lish as 'Farthest North,' the most interesting of all narratives of Arctic travel. A translation of a work by him on 'Eskimo Life' was published N in 1893. His further works include