fixed the
first of the stern timbers, but were then obliged to suspend work.

During the last days of the month the weather was extremely bad. The
wind blew from the east, sometimes with the violence of a tempest. The
engineer was somewhat uneasy on account of the dockyard sheds--which,
besides, he could not have established in any other place near to
Granite House--for the islet only imperfectly sheltered the shore from
the fury of the open sea, and in great storms the waves beat against the
very foot of the granite cliff.

But, very fortunately, these fears were not realised. The wind shifted
to the south-east, and there the beach of Granite House was completely
covered by Flotsam Point.

Pencroft and Ayrton, the most zealous workmen at the new vessel, pursued
their labour as long as they could. They were not men to mind the wind
tearing at their hair, nor the rain wetting them to the skin, and a blow
from a hammer is worth just as much in bad as in fine weather. But when
a severe frost succeeded this wet period, the wood, its fibres acquiring
the hardness of iron, became extremely difficult to work, and about the
10th of June ship-building was obliged to be entirely discontinued.

Cyrus Harding and his companions had not omitted to observe how severe
was the temperature during the winters of Lincoln Island. The cold was
comparable to that experienced in the States of New England, situated at
almost the same distance from the equator. In the northern hemisphere,
or at any rate in the part occupied by British America and the north of
the United States, this phenomenon is explained by the flat conformation
of the territories bordering on the pole, and on which there is no
intumescence of the soil to oppose any obstacle to the north winds;
here, in Lincoln Island, this explanation would not suffice.

"It has even been observed," remarked Harding one day to his companions,
"that in equal latitudes the islands and coast regions are less tried by
the cold than inland countries. I have often heard it asserted that the
winters of Lombardy, for example, are not less rigorous than those of
Scotland, which results from the sea restoring during the winter the
heat which it received during the summer. Islands are, therefore, in a
better situation for benefiting by this restitution."

"But then, Captain Harding," asked Herbert, "why does Lincoln Island
appear to escape the common law?"

"That is difficult to explain