ELISHA KENT KANE. 117 



exact attention to cleanliness, exercise, recreation, and withal to 

 fixed routine. During the winter which followed, the sun was 

 one hundred and twenty days below the horizon; and, owing to 

 a range of hills toward our southern meridian, the maximum 



o ' 



darkness was not relieved by apparent twilight even at noon- 

 day. The atmospheric temperatures were lower than any 

 that had been recorded by others before us. We had adopted 

 every precaution to secure accuracy in these observations, and 

 the indications of our numerous thermometers alcoholic, 

 ethereal, and mercurial were registered hourly. From them 

 it appears that the mean annual temperature of Rensselaer 

 Harbor, as we named our winter-home, is lower than that of 

 Melville Island, as recorded by Parry, by two degrees. In 

 certain sheltered positions, the process of freezing was unin- 

 termitted for any consecutive twenty-four hours throughout 

 the year. The lowest temperature was observed in February, 

 when the mean of eight instruments indicated minus 70 

 Fahrenheit. Chloroform froze ; the essential oils of sassafras, 

 juniper, cujpebs, and wintergreen were resolved into mixed 

 solid and liquid ; and on the morning of February 24 we wit- 

 nessed chloric ether congealed for the first time by a natural 

 temperature 



" Our preparations for the second winter were modified 

 largely by controlling circumstances. The physical energies 

 of the party had sensibly declined. Our resources were dimi- 

 nished. We had but fifty gallons of oil saved from our sum- 

 mer's seal-hunt. We were scant of fuel; and our food, which 

 now consisted only of the ordinary marine stores, was by no 

 means suited to repel scurvy. Our molasses was reduced to 

 forty gallons, and our dried fruits seemed to have lost their 

 efficiency. A single apartment was bulkheaded oif amidships 

 as a dormitory and abiding-room for our entire party, and a 

 moss envelop, cut with difficulty from the frozen cliffs, made 



