ly in the southwest at night. About
this time our medical gentlemen began to remark the extreme
difficulty with which sores of every kind healed; a circumstance
that rendered it the more necessary to be cautious in exposing the
men to frostbites, lest the long inactivity and want of exercise
during the cure of sores, in other respects trifling, should
produce serious effects upon the general health of the patients.

During the following fortnight we were chiefly occupied in
observing various phenomena in the heavens, the vivid coruscations
of the Aurora Borealis, the falling of meteors, and in taking
lunar distances; but the difficulty of making observations in this
climate is inconceivably great; on one occasion the mercury of the
artificial horizon froze into a solid mass.

About this part of the winter we began to experience a more
serious inconvenience from the bursting of the lemon-juice bottles
by frost, the whole contents being frequently frozen into a solid
mass, except a small portion of highly concentrated acid in the
centre, which in most instances was found to have leaked out, so
that when the ice was thawed it was little better than water. This
evil increased to a very alarming degree in the course of the
winter: some cases being opened in which more than two thirds of
the lemon-juice was thus destroyed, and the remainder rendered
nearly inefficient.

It was at first supposed that this accident might have been
prevented by not quite filling the bottles, but it was afterward
found that the corks flying out did not save them from breaking.
We observed that the greatest damage was done in those cases which
were stowed nearest to the ship's side, and we therefore removed
all the rest amidships; a precaution which, had it been sooner
known and adopted, would probably have prevented at least a part
of the mischief. The vinegar also became frozen in the casks in
the same manner, and lost a great deal of its acidity when thawed.
This circumstance conferred an additional value on a few gallons
of very highly concentrated vinegar, which had been sent out on
trial upon this and the preceding voyage, and which, when mixed
with six or seven times its own quantity of water, was sufficiently
acid for every purpose. This vinegar, when exposed to the
temperature of 25 deg. below zero, congealed only into a consistence
like that of the thickest honey, but was never sufficiently hard
to break any vessel which contained i