336 APPENDIX. 



severe cold, sufficient to guide me in securing my sledge crews from 

 exposure to undue severity of climate. These matters may appear tri- 

 vial, but it must occur to all intelligent minds that the onerous duties 

 of command or of responsibility, to the thinking portion of the world, 

 are somewhat relieved by the studies of science. 



Having constructed my Table, I was not a little surprised to find 

 the peculiar coincidence throughout the whole range between 1819 and 

 1854, thirty-five years. If the reader will run his pencil through the 

 low temperatures at the periods which I have suggested, he perhaps 

 will feel as much astonished as I was to find how slightly the lines 

 deviate from that which would almost indicate precise seasons. 



In the computation of the Table of Mean Cold it is also curious to 

 find the mean amount to agree so closely ; and in the spring of 1854 

 the coldest season experienced in those regions I was able to com- 

 pute nearly the moment when the cold, due to the season, had reached 

 the full amount. 



If these researches afforded no further value than occupation for the 

 mind under such a species of captivity, it certainly had so far a bene- 

 ficial result ; but I thought that the question thus started, with the 

 complete documents in my possession, might, at some future date, in- 

 duce others to pursue this matter to a more satisfactory result. They 

 are curious and interesting, and as such I have deemed them worthy 

 of record. 



