year is two degrees below zero.
Physicists have explained this fact in the following way, and Dr.
Clawbonny shared their opinion.

According to them, the most constant winds in the northern regions of
America are from the southwest; they come from the Pacific Ocean, with
an equal and agreeable temperature; but before they reach the arctic
seas they are obliged to cross the great American continent, which is
covered with snow; the contact chills them, and communicates to these
regions their intense cold.

Hatteras found himself at the pole of cold, beyond the countries seen
by his predecessors; he consequently expected a terrible winter, on a
ship lost amid the ice, with a turbulent crew. He resolved to meet
these dangers with his usual energy. He faced what awaited him without
flinching.

He began, with Johnson's aid and experience, to take all the measures
necessary for going into winter-quarters. According to his calculation
the _Forward_ had been carried two hundred and fifty miles from any
known land, that is to say, from North Cornwall; she was firmly fixed
in a field of ice, as in a bed of granite, and no human power could
extricate her.

[Illustration]

There was not a drop of open water in these vast seas chained by the
fierce arctic winter. The ice-fields stretched away out of sight, but
without presenting a smooth surface. Far from it. Numerous icebergs
stood up in the icy plain, and the _Forward_ was sheltered by the
highest of them on three points of the compass; the southeast wind
alone reached them. Let one imagine rock instead of ice, verdure
instead of snow, and the sea again liquid, and the brig would have
quietly cast anchor in a pretty bay, sheltered from the fiercest
blasts. But what desolation here! What a gloomy prospect! What a
melancholy view!

The brig, although motionless, nevertheless had to be fastened
securely by means of anchors; this was a necessary precaution against
possible thaws and submarine upheavals. Johnson, on hearing that the
_Forward_ was at the pole of cold, took even greater precautions for
securing warmth.

"We shall have it severe enough," he had said to the doctor; "that's
just the captain's luck, to go and get caught at the most disagreeable
spot on the globe! Bah! you will see that we shall get out of it."

As to the doctor, at the bottom of his heart he was simply delighted.
He would not have changed it for any other. Winter at the pole of
cold! What good luc