the
islands of the northern ocean in winter.

The moonlit nights have been grand, and calculated to foster romance
in a sailor's thoughts were the surroundings appropriate. As it is,
the little cheer we extract from them is in the fact that we see the
same shining face that is illuminating the home of our loved ones.

Often in my corner of the tent, Mr. Foss and I pass what would be a
weary hour otherwise, over a game of chess, the pieces for which he
has fashioned from gooney bones and blocks of wood.

Mr. Main has made a wonderful nautical instrument--a sextant--from the
face of the Saginaw's steam gauge, together with some broken bits of
a stateroom mirror and scraps of zinc. Its minute and finely drawn
scale was made upon the zinc with a cambric needle, and the completed
instrument is the result of great skill and patience. Mr. Talbot has
tested it and pronounces it sufficiently accurate for navigating
purposes.

Another officer has made a duplicate of the official chart of this
part of the Pacific, and still another has copied all the Nautical
Almanac tables necessary for navigation.

I have been directed by the captain to make a selection from the
best-preserved supplies in the storehouse most suitable for boat
service, and calculate that Talbot will have the equivalent of
thirty-five days' provender at one-half rations, although many of the
articles are not in the regular ration tables.

This morning the boat was surrounded by many men and carried bodily
into water that was deep enough to float her. There she was anchored
and the stores carried out to her. Mr. Butterworth, standing waist
deep in the water, put on the last finishing touches while she was
afloat by screwing to the gunwales the rowlocks for use in calm
weather.

There was expended from store-book the following articles: ten
breakers (a small keg) of water, five days' rations of hard tack
sealed in tin, ten days of the same in canvas bags, two dozen small
tins of preserved meat, five tins (five pounds each) of dessicated
potato, two tins of cooked beans, three tins of boiled wheaten grits,
one ham, six tins of preserved oysters, ten pounds of dried beef,
twelve tins of lima beans, about five pounds of butter, one gallon of
molasses, twelve pounds of white sugar, four pounds of tea and five
pounds of coffee. A small tin cooking apparatus for burning oil was
also improvised and furnished.

[Illustration: JAMES BUTTERWORTH
Passed Ass