DIFFICULTIES WITH INSTRUMENTS 273 



to shut a door after them; where two or three are 

 gathered together, you generally find at least one 

 who suffers from this defect. How many would there 

 be among us, who numbered nine? It is no use asking 

 a victim of this complaint to shut the door after him; 

 he is simply incapable of doing it. I was not yet well 

 enough acquainted with my companions as regards the 

 door-shutting question, and in order to be on the safe 

 side we might just as well put up a self-closing door. 

 This was done by Stubberud, by fixing the door-frame 

 into the wall in an oblique position just like a cellar- 

 door at home. Now the door could not stay open; it 

 had to fall to. I was glad when I saw it finished; we 

 were secured against an invasion of dogs. Four snow 

 steps covered with boards led from the door down into 

 the passage. In addition to all these new rooms, we 

 had thus gained an extra protection for our house. 



While this work was in progress, our instrument- 

 maker had his hands full; the clockwork mechanism 

 of the thermograph had gone wrong: the spindle was 

 broken, I believe. This was particularly annoying, 

 because this thermograph had been working so well in 

 low temperatures. The other thermograph had evi- 

 dently been constructed with a view to the tropics; at 

 any rate, it would not go in the cold. Our instrument- 

 maker has one method of dealing with all instruments 

 almost without exception. He puts them in the oven, 

 and stokes up the fire. This time it worked remark- 



VOL. I. 18 



