274 PREPARING FOR WINTER 



ably well, since it enabled him to ascertain beyond a 

 doubt that the thing was useless. The thermograph 

 would not work in the cold. Meanwhile he got it 

 cleared of all the old oil that stuck to it everywhere, 

 on wheels and pins, like fish-glue; then it was hung up 

 to the kitchen ceiling. The temperature there may 

 possibly revive it, and make it think it is in the tropics. 

 In this way we shall have the temperature of the 

 ' galley" registered, and later on we shall probably be 

 able to reckon up what we have had for dinner in the 

 course of the week. Whether Professor Mohn will be 

 overjoyed with this result is another question, which the 

 instrument-maker and director did not care to go into. 

 Besides these instruments we have a hygrograph 

 we are well supplied; but this takes one of us out 

 of doors once in the twenty-four hours. Lindstrom 

 has cleaned it and oiled it and set it going. In spite 

 of this, at three in the morning it comes to a stop. 

 OBut I have never seen Lindstrom beaten yet. After 

 many consultations he was given the task of trying to 

 construct a thermograph out of the hygrograph and 

 the disabled thermograph; this was just the job for 

 him. The production he showed me a few hours later 

 made my hair stand on end. What would Steen say? 

 Do you know what it was? Well, it was an old meat- 

 tin circulating inside the thermograph case. Heavens! 

 what an insult to the self -registering meteorological 

 instruments ! I was thunderstruck, thinking, of course, 



