The Winter Night. 357 



is cracking and squeezing against the ship, making it 

 shake. 



"Monday, February iQth. Once more it may be said 

 that the night is darkest just before the dawn. Wind 

 began to blow from the south to-day, and has reached a 



o * 



velocity of 13 feet per second. We did some ice- 

 boring this morning-, and found that the ice to port is 



5 feet i if inches ( 1*875 metres) thick, with a layer of 

 about i^ inches of snow over it. The ice forward was 



6 feet 7^ inches (2-08 metres) thick, but a couple of 

 inches of this was snow. This cannot be called much 

 growth for quite a month, when one thinks that the 

 temperature has be^en down to 58 F. below zero. 



" Both to-day and yesterday w r e have seen the mirage 

 of the sun again ; to-day it was high above the horizon, 



*7) J O 



and almost seemed to assume a round, disc-like form. 

 Some of the others maintain that they have seen the 

 upper edge of the sun itself ; Peter and Bentzen that 

 they have seen at least half of the disc and Juell and 

 Hansen declare that the whole of it was above the 

 horizon. I am afraid it is so long since they saw it that 

 they have forgotten what it is like. 



''Tuesday, February 2Oth. Great sun festival to-day 

 without any sun. We felt certain we should see it, but 

 there were clouds on the horizon. However we were 

 not going to be cheated. out of our festival ; we can hold 

 another on the occasion of really see.ing it for the first 

 time. We began with a grand rifle practice in the 



