172 REARING MUSTARD AND CRESS. [April, 



daylight or been exposed to the open ah* for the last six 

 months with a more natural tint of carnation. 



April 23. The weather has evidently taken a favour- 

 able change; the temperature is now at 12' 5, snow 

 thawing on the dark portions of the land, the ship's 

 sides, and awnings directly exposed to the sun's rays, 

 but within the awnings on our quarter-deck the tempe- 

 rature showing 21; the drippings remind one strongly 

 of some limestone cave, where the icicle and the deposit 

 on the deck represent the stalactite and stalagmite. The 

 temperatures for the last ten days have gained the phis 

 sign, affording as follows: maximum +16; minimum 

 18-25; mean + 17-14. Notwithstanding the low 

 temperature, even in my very weak condition, I really 

 can pronounce the air, under the full influence of a bright 

 sun and cloudless sky, to be balmy and delicious. 



Trifles, at any other period to be classed light as air, 

 here assume an importance intensely interesting. Doubt- 

 less most of us have experienced the delight, as boys, in 

 rearing mustard and cress ; but a proficiency in every 

 employment does not fall to the lot of every experimenter ; 

 and so we find even the rearing of mustard and cress in 

 close cabins, and without daylight, is a subject for com- 

 petition ; here, however, it becomes a matter of vital im- 

 portance. The experiments to which I now allude were 

 conducted in my cabin, in three boxes filled with the 

 sifted dust from pounded peat : No. 1 was simply the 

 peat ; No. 2 the same covered with a fine filmy sheet of 

 cotton wool ; No. 3 the same, but with a sheet of " wad- 

 ding." Today that in No. 3 had reached a length of five 

 inches, close, strong in stem, and of a light green, which 



