194 DEPTH OF WINTER. [December. 



December 28. Spring tide of tin's moon, and yet we 

 have the thermometer down only to 40'7; mercury 

 partially, not entirely, frozen. How one's feelings appear 

 to accommodate themselves to the changes ! It is calm, 

 and therefore we feel it less. I have just returned from 

 taking exercise on the floe, but without being sensible of 

 any inconvenience ; and it often occurs to me that it is 

 injudicious to make so much parade about temperatures, 

 when, were it not for the thermometers, few would feel 

 the variation. On the other hand, the knowledge gives 

 a man assurance of what he can bear, and furnishes him 

 with a Mentor which prevents his exposure to undue 

 cold without being prepared to meet it. It is curious, 

 to the uninitiated, to view the Esquimaux dogs perfectly 

 satisfied and luxxiriating in the snow at this tempera- 

 ture ! They have snow-houses, into which they can re- 

 tire, if cold pinches ; but we do not perceive that they 

 do so until the breeze makes it felt, and then the tem- 

 perature rises with the force of the breeze. When the 

 wind blows strong, with drift, the poor animals howl and 

 move about evidently uncomfortable ; hunger and frozen 

 food may in part account for this, but why are they 

 never frost-bitten ? 



One very curious fact, which I have repeatedly noticed, 

 and to which I never have observed any previous allusion, 

 is the falling of light bodies during intense cold, and, of 

 course, calm weather. Does intense cold produce any- 

 thing to be compared, directly or indirectly, to a vacuum? 

 Vapour condenses and falls perpendicularly as fine cry- 

 stalline ice ; ah 1 objects exposed to this vertical action 

 become covered with rime, but never laterally. The 



