26 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



night. As we walked around the bark in an unsuccessful effort to 

 keep warm we saw beyond the glittering spars the glow of a great 

 arc. This, for a time, hung steadily between the masts and then 

 suddenly, as if the fetters which had held it together had burst, the 

 entire southerji heavens were swept by aimless bands of fleeting 

 luminous patches. 



After a violent storm which lasted for three days the sky cleared 

 again on the evening of the 19th; the wind then came in puffs with 

 doleful wails like the moans of a dying soul. This we knew indicated 

 that the tempest was nearly spent. At five o'clock I wrote in my log: 



"5 P. M. — The storm has at last abated. It has left us so suddenly 

 that the calm is as imexpected as it is appreciated. The barometer is 

 steady and the temperature is falling fast. It is already 9°C., and is 

 still falling. The scene now before us is full of new delights. The 

 ice is spread out again, bright, soft and tinted with delicate colors. 

 Every time the thick air and the gloomy storm clouds are brushed 

 away, the pack, white and sparkling, has a new story to tell. It brings 

 to us moods like a cheerful page in a sad story. Under the influence 

 of this spell everybody is singing, whistling and humming familiar 

 tunes; all are planning new work and nursing big ambitions. In the 

 cabin the music-boxes are grinding out favorite music, which rings 

 over the pack with a new joy. In the forecastle the men are dancing 

 and playing the accordeon with telling effect. From some invisible 

 point of the pack there combes a weird response to every discord of the 

 music. It is the 'gha-a-ah, gha-a-aha' of the penguins. We have had 

 a peep at the sun, and this has brought about an intoxication akin to 

 alcoholic stimulation, and well it might, for the brief period of its 

 visibility has been a dream of charms. The great twilight zone of 

 purple, fringed with violet and orange and rose is rising over the east. 

 The zenith is pale blue, studded with a few scarlet and lavender clouds, 

 and the sun, a great ball of old gold, is sinking under the pearly rose- 

 tinged line of ihe endless expanse of ice." 



"8 P. M. — The ice shows signs of strong pressure from the north. 

 Along the crevasses, running easterly and westerly, there are great 

 lines of hummocks from four to eight feet in height. The colors of 

 the pack are nov/ far from the despairing monotone of yesterday. The 

 yellow sea algae have already fixed themselves in the new ice and make 

 it appear ocherous. The twilight on clear nights is extended by the 

 latent luminosity of the snow. The blueness of the pack in this 

 twilight, separated by the ebony lanes of open water and decorated 

 by the algae-strewn yellow and green lines in the hummocks, makes 

 the scenes curiously attractive. Added to this we have the bergs, tall, 

 sharp and imposing, standing out against the soft blue of the sky and 

 the hard blue of the pack as if cut from huge masses of alabaster. The 



