UNPACKING EGGS 77 



wool certainly was not, and I am sure he would not have 

 performed the labour Augaeus set him, had he been 

 suffering from acute chortismus aggravated by breathing 

 an atmosphere so thickly charged with lino-byssal fila- 

 ments, that you might almost roll up an egg with safety 

 in it. Under such circumstances I proceed to answer 

 your letter. I only wonder I am not driven quite mad 

 and do not dream I am a Gare-fowl's egg about to be 

 involved in a winding sheet of cotton wool and stored 

 away for ever in the inmost and most secure compartment 

 of one of my yellow Lapland coffers.* 



In the summer of the following year he joined his 

 friend Edward Birkbeck (afterwards Sir E. B.) in a 

 voyage to Spitsbergen. Nowadays that island may be 

 visited every summer by any tourist who likes to pay 

 sufficient gold to Messrs. Cook, but in the early " sixties ' 

 the voyage was a difficult and indeed a somewhat 

 perilous undertaking, and the story of Newton's adven- 

 tures, told in the following letters to his brother Edward, 

 has a certain historical value. 



Sultana, R.T.Y.C., Hammerfest, 



June 30, 1864. 



Here I am once more at the place which I think I 

 hate most in the world ; but I am bound to say that my 

 second stay here has been more agreeable than my first 

 was ; for in 1855 the snow was only beginning to go, and 

 it rained or snowed ten days out of the eleven I passed 

 here. Now the snow is all but gone and the weather 

 really pleasant. To-day it is actually hot and I am 

 writing this with my waistcoat open while on deck ; the 

 sun is powerful enough for anything, though there is a 

 good S.E. breeze. Yesterday the post steamer from the 

 south arrived bringing me a cheery letter from M. and 

 yours of the 1st May. Before I answer this, however, I 

 will tell you of our outward voyage. We left Lowestoft 



* Letter to F. B. Tristram, July 11, 1863. 



