110 PARRY'S FIRST VOYAGE. 



shortly after the taking up of their winter quarters. 

 One of these did not return on board before sunset, as 

 strictly ordered, and the consequence is stated to have 

 been as follows : 



" John Pearson, a marine belonging 1 to the Griper, 

 who was the last that returned on board, had his hands 

 severely frost-bitten, having imprudently gone away 

 without mittens, and with a musket in his hand. A 

 party of our people most providentially found him, 

 although the night was very dark, just as he had fallen 

 down a bank of snow, and was beginning to feel that 

 degree of torpor and drowsiness which, if indulged, 

 inevitably proves fatal. When he was brought on 

 board, his fingers were quite stiff, and bent into the 

 shape of that part of the musket which he had been 

 carrying ; and the frost had so far destroyed the anima- 

 tion in his fingers on one hand that it was necessary to 

 amputate three of them a short time after, notwith- 

 standing all the care and attention paid to him by the 

 medical gentlemen. The effect which exposure to se- 

 vere frost has in benumbing the mental as well as the 

 corporeal faculties was very striking in this man, as 

 well as in two of the young gentlemen, who returned 

 after dark, and of whom we were anxious to make 

 inquiries respecting Pearson. When I sent for them 

 into my cabin they looked wild, spoke thick and indis- 

 tinctly, and it was impossible to draw from them a 

 rational answer to any of our questions. After being 

 on board for a short time the mental faculties appeared 

 gradually to return with the returning circulation ; and 

 it was not till then that a looker-on could easily per- 

 suade himself that they had not been drinking too 

 freely." 



So early as the 29th of October the thermometer was 

 down to twenty-four degrees below zero. It waa 



