136 PARRY'S SECOND VOYAGE. 



fires, and other precautions against the severity of the 

 climate, having been once adapted to a low degree of 

 cold, an increase of temperature renders them oppress- 

 ive and inconvenient." Another circumstance is men- 

 tioned, which may serve to confirm a conjecture which 

 has long been maintained by some, that an open sea, 

 free of ice, exists at or near the pole. " On the 2d of 

 November," says Parry, " the wind, freshened up to a 

 gale from N. by W., lowered the thermometer before 

 midnight to 5, whereas a rise of wind at Melville 

 Island was generally accompanied by a simultaneous 

 rise in the thermometer at low temperatures. May not 

 this," he asks, "be occasioned by the wind blowing 

 over an open sea in the quarter from which the wind 

 blows, and tend to confirm the opinion that at or neai 

 the pole an open sea, free of ice, exists ? ; 



Parry was now frozen up for another winter in the 

 midst of the Northern Sea, and he forthwith applied 

 himself to make the necessary arrangements, with that 

 judicious foresight which had been already so conspic- 

 uous in the same trying circumstances. As the result 

 of experience, not less than of several ingenious con- 

 trivances, the ships were much more thoroughly heated 

 than in the former voyage ; the provisioning, too, was 

 more ample, and antidotes against scurvy still more 

 copiously supplied. The Polar Theatre opened, on the 

 9th of February, with " The Rivals." The two captains 

 appeared as Sir Anthony and Captain Absolute ; while 

 those who personated the ladies had very generously 

 removed an ample growth of beard, disregarding the 

 comfortable warmth which it afforded in an Arctic cli- 

 mate. The company were well received, and went 

 through their performances with unabated spirit. But 

 the discomfort of a stage, the exhibitions of which were 



