p. 17: I have already mentioned that there were no maps on board that were of any use to us, and that I had copied our only existing map out of Nansen’s book. Other than that volume and Kolchak’s The Ice of the Siberian Sea , we had no other relevant works. Although Lieutenant Brusilov had bought a small library for hundreds of rubles before our departure, it contained only novels, stories, and old journals—not a single book of any use to us except Nansen’s Farthest North . Nansen was our only guide, and provided everything we knew about Franz Josef Land…. Drawing all our knowledge from Nansen’s experiences, we treated his book like a precious treasure. I had reread it so often that I could cite entire passages from memory. [Albanov also mentions an English technical journal that had charts for the altitude of the sun and astronomy charts for the period (p. 18).]
p. 118: I did not know much English, but with the help of a little dictionary I had brought with me, and Nilsen’s assistance, we were able to translate the message.
p. 155, for a kayak voyage there: was not a great deal to carry: compass, binoculars, chronometer, sextant, ax, two books, sails….
p. 189: Mr Skobelev himself came to greet us and brought us a big pile of newspapers with the latest news of the war…. Among the news items in the newspapers, we read that the Russian government had organized two expeditions to look for Brusilov and Sedov.