of our theatrical
amusements for this winter, the season having now arrived when
there would no longer be a want of occupation for the men, and
when it became necessary also to remove a part of the roofing to
admit light to the officers' cabins. Our poets were again set to
work on this occasion, and an appropriate address was spoken on
the closing of the North Georgia Theatre, than which we may,
without vanity, be permitted to say, none had ever done more real
service to the community for whose benefit it was intended.

On the 23d we found, by digging a hole in the ice, in the middle
of the harbour, where the depth of water was four fathoms and a
quarter, that its thickness was six feet and a half, and the snow
on the surface of it eight inches deep. This may be considered a
fair specimen of the average formation of ice in this neighbourhood
since the middle of the preceding September: and as the freezing
process did not stop for six weeks after this, the produce of the
whole winter may, perhaps, be reasonably taken at seven, or seven
and a half feet. In chopping this ice with an axe the men found it
very hard and brittle, till they arrived within a foot of the lower
surface, where it became soft and spongy.

Being extremely anxious to get rid, as early as possible, of the
drying of our washed clothes upon the lower deck, I had to-day a
silk handkerchief washed and hung up under the stern, in order to
try the effect of the sun's rays upon it. In four hours it became
thoroughly dry, the thermometer in the shade being from -18 deg. to
-6 deg. at the time. This was the first article that had been dried
without artificial heat for six months, and it was yet another
month before flannel could be dried in the open air. When this is
considered, as well as that, during the same period, the airing of
the bedding, the drying of the bed-places, and the ventilation of
the inhabited parts of the ship, were wholly dependant on the same
means, and this with a very limited supply of fuel, it may,
perhaps be conceived, in some degree, what unremitting attention
was necessary to the preservation of health, under circumstances
so unfavourable and even prejudicial.

The morning of April 27th being very fine, and the thermometer at
+6 deg., the ship's company's bedding was hung up to air, between the
fore and main rigging, being the first time we had ventured to
bring it from the lower deck for nearly eight months. While it was
out, t