essary to have recourse entirely
to the latter process, which added materially to the expenditure
of fuel during the winter months. The snow for this purpose was
dug out of the drifts which had formed upon the ice round the
ships, and dissolved in the coppers. We found it necessary always
to strain the water thus procured, on account of the sand which
the heavy snowdrifts brought from the island, after which it was
quite pure and wholesome.

On the 16th it blew a strong gale from the northward, accompanied
by such a constant snowdrift, that, although the weather was quite
clear overhead, the boathouse at the distance of three or four
hundred yards could scarcely be seen from the ships. On such
occasions no person was permitted on any account to leave the
ships. Indeed, when this snowdrift occurred, as it frequently did
in the winter, with a hard gale and the thermometer very low, I
believe that no human being could have remained alive after an
hour's exposure to it. In order, therefore, to secure a
communication between the two ships, a distance not exceeding half
a cable's length, as well as from the ships to the house on shore,
a line was kept extended, as a guide from one to the other. The
meridian, altitude of the sun was observed this day by an
artificial horizon, which I noticed from the circumstance of its
being the last time we had an opportunity of observing it for
about four months.

On the 26th the sun afforded us sufficient light or writing and
reading in my cabin, the stern-windows exactly facing the south,
from half past nine till half past two; for the rest of the
four-and-twenty hours, we lived, of course, by candle-light.
Nothing could exceed the beauty of the sky to the southeast and
southwest at sunrise and sunset about this period: near the
horizon there was generally a rich bluish purple and a bright arch
of deep red above, the one mingling imperceptibly with the other.

It now became rather a painful experiment to touch any metallic
substance in the open air with the naked hand; the feeling
produced by it exactly resembling that occasioned by the opposite
extreme of intense heat, and taking off the skin from the part
affected. We found it necessary, therefore, to use great caution
in handling our sextants and other instruments, particularly the
eye-pieces of telescopes, which, if suffered to touch the face,
occasioned an intense burning pain; but this was easily remedied
by covering them over