y from one point of the compass to another.
The variability of the wind in the Arctic Seas is a remarkable fact;
sometimes a dead calm is followed in a few minutes by a violent tempest,
as the _Forward_ found to her cost on the 23rd of June in the midst
of the immense bay. The more constant winds blow from off the ice-bank
on to the open sea, and are intensely cold. On that day the thermometer
fell several degrees; the wind veered round to the south, and violent
gusts, sweeping over the ice-fields, brought a thick snow along with
them. Hatteras immediately caused the sails that helped the screw
to be furled, but not quickly enough to prevent his little foresail
being carried away in the twinkling of an eye. Hatteras worked his
ship with the greatest composure, and did not leave the deck during
the tempest; he was obliged to fly before the weather and to turn
westward. The wind raised up enormous waves, in the midst of which
blocks of ice balanced themselves; these blocks were of all sizes
and shapes, and had been struck off the surrounding ice-fields; the
brig was tossed about like a child's plaything, and morsels of the
packs were thrown over her hull; at one instant she was lying
perpendicularly along the side of a liquid mountain; her steel prow
concentrated the light, and shone like a melting metal bar; at another
she was down an abyss, plunging her head into whirlwinds of snow,
whilst her screws, out of the water, turned in space with a sinister
noise, striking the air with their paddles. Rain mixed with the snow
and fell in torrents.

The doctor could not miss such an occasion of getting wet to the skin;
he remained on deck, a prey to that emotional admiration which a
scientific man must necessarily feel during such a spectacle. His
nearest neighbour could not have heard him speak, so he said nothing
and watched; but whilst watching he was witness to an odd phenomenon,
peculiar to hyperborean regions. The tempest was confined to a
restricted area, and only extended for about three or four miles;
the wind that passes over ice-fields loses much of its strength and
cannot carry its violence far out; the doctor perceived from time
to time, through an opening in the tempest, a calm sky and a quiet
sea beyond some ice-fields. The _Forward_ would therefore only have
to take advantage of some channels left by the ice to find a peaceful
navigation again, but she ran the risk of being thrown on to one of
the moving banks w