148 THE JEANNETTE ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



places on the globe. The mean temperature of the air IB 

 18.5 Fahrenheit. At times the cold reaches 70 below zero, 

 and mercury is frozen for one-sixth of the year. A warm 

 summer follows the cold winter ; the ground is then thawed 

 three feet deep, and though the crops rest on perpetually 

 frozen strata, yet they produce from fifteen to forty-fold. 

 Oxen here take the places of horses, and men and girls ride 

 them astride. When used to draw sledges, the driver IB 

 perched on the back of one of the oxen. 



So accustomed do the natives become to the cold, that 

 even with the thermometer at many degrees below freezing 

 point, the Yakut women, with bare arms, stand in the open- 

 air markets, chatting and joking as pleasantly as in genial 

 spring. In fact, the great cold is not thought a grievance 

 in Siberia, for a man clothed in furs may sleep at night in 

 an open sledge when the mercury freezes in the thermom- 

 eter; and wrapped up in his pelisse, he can lie without 

 inconvenience on the snow under a tent where the tempera- 

 ture of the air is 30 below zero. 



John Ledyard, referred to in a former chapter, resided at 

 Yakutsk in the winter of 1787, and was an attentive observer 

 of whatever came under his notice. The following are ex- 

 tracts from the journal which he kept at Yakutsk: 



" The people in Yakutsk have no wells. They have tried 

 them to a very great depth, but they freeze over even in 

 summer ; consequently they have all their water from the 

 river. But in winter they cannot bring water in its fluid 

 state ; it freezes on the way. It is, therefore, brought in 

 large cakes of ice to their houses, and piled up in their 

 yards. Milk is brought to market in the same way. A 

 Yakuti came into our house to-day with a bag full of ice. 

 'What,' said I, ' has the man brought ice to sell in Siberia?' 

 It was milk. Clear mercury exposed to the air is constantly 

 frozen. 



" In these severe frosts the air is condensed like a thick 

 fog; the atmosphere itself is frozen; respiration is fatiguing; 

 all exercise must be moderate as possible, in these seasons 



