h was accomplished on the following day, though not without
excessive fatigue and constant wet to the men, several of whom fell into
the water by the ice breaking under them.

On the 5th, the register-thermometer, which had been placed in the
ground in the winter, was taken up, though, to our astonishment, the
ground above and about it had become nearly as hard and compactly frozen
as when we dug the hole to put it down. How this came about we were
quite at a loss to determine; for the earth had been thrown in quite
loosely, whereas its present consolidated state implied its having been
thoroughly thawed and frozen again. It occupied two men ten days to
extricate it, which, as they approached the thermometer, was done by a
chisel and mallet, to avoid injury by jarring. This, however, was not
sufficient to prevent mischief, the instrument being so identified with
the frozen earth as to render it impossible to strike the ground near it
without communicating the shock to the tubes, two of which were in
consequence found to be broken. Thus ended our experiment for
ascertaining the temperature of the earth during the winter; an
experiment which it would seem, from this attempt, scarcely practicable
to make in any satisfactory manner without some apparatus constructed
expressly for the purpose.

On the 6th the work was continued as before, and about four hundred
yards of ice were sawn through and floated out, leaving now a broad
canal, eleven hundred yards in length, leading from the open water
towards that formed by the gravelled space.

When the lateness of the season to which the ships had now been detained
in the ice is considered, with reference to the probability of the
Fury's effecting anything of importance during the short remainder of
the present summer, it will not be wondered at that, coupling this
consideration with that of the health of my officers and men, I began to
entertain doubts whether it would still be prudent to adopt the intended
measure of remaining out in the Fury as a single ship; whether, in
short, under existing circumstances, the probable evil did not far
outweigh the possible good. In order to assist my own judgment on this
occasion upon one of the most material points, I requested the medical
officers of the Fury to furnish me with their opinions "as to the
probable effect that a third winter passed in these regions would
produce on the health of the officers, seamen, and marines of that ship