1853.] TERMINATION OF DARKNESS. 213 



afford any reliable result. The dotted line c represents 

 the covering board on the lee side. 



This will close the month of January : not much un- 

 like a gloomy English November, but not at all realizing 

 the very cheerless long winter nights which have been so 

 frequently dinned into our ears, that I was almost in- 

 duced to think of sleeping them away on " eider-down 

 beds " but, no less strange than true, these were recom- 

 mended as absolutely indispensable ! 



February commences our first spring month, and we 

 begin truly to feel that the days perceptibly lengthen. 

 All are looking anxiously forward to the 18th, for the 

 reappearance of our cheering luminary, which will find 

 our travellers in high spirits and with some impatience 

 to try their powers on the floe. 



About the 14th and 15th the weather underwent un- 

 expected changes, the temperature rising as high as 2 '5 

 above zero. The magnetometer also has of late exhi- 

 bited such sudden and incomprehensible disturbances, 

 that I determined on the construction of an independent 

 direct instrument, on the plan of the old portable Decli- 

 nometer, but in the present case substituting a heavy 

 nine-inch magnet for the magnetic telescope, and intro- 

 ducing, in Y's beneath it, a brass telescope (adapted from 

 my sextant), with the scale engraved on mica and placed 

 in contact with the object-glass. A house was also con- 

 structed of snow bricks, affording a distance of twenty- 

 five feet between the two instruments, and a huge block 

 of ice introduced for the pedestal.* 



On the 18th our younger men ascended Britannia 



* This instrument came into action on the 21st of March. 



