LOW TEMPERATURE. 285 



were experiencing about the coldest temperature ever 

 recorded. But this would have held good only in the 

 profound calm with which we were favored. At such 

 low temperature the least wind is painful and even 

 dangerous, especially if the traveler is compelled to 

 face it. It is also a singular circumstance that, while 

 the sun's rays, penetrating the atmosphere, seem to 

 impart to it so little warmth, they are powerful 

 enough to blister the skin, so that in truth the opjDO- 

 site conditions of heat — positive and negative — are 

 operating upon the unfortunate face at one and the 

 same time. 



The effect of these low temperatures upon the snow 

 is very striking. It becomes hardened to such a de- 

 gree that it almost equals sand in grittiness, and the 

 friction to the sledge-runner is increased accordingly. 

 The same circumstance was noted by Baron Wrangel, 

 but it is not new to the Esquimaux. The sledge runs 

 most glibly when the snow is slightly wet. To ob- 

 viate in some measure the difficulty thus occasioned, 

 the native covers the sole of his runner with moisture. 

 Dissolving in his mouth a piece of snow, he pours it 

 out into his hand and coats with it the polished ivory 

 sole, and in an instant he has formed a thin film of ice 

 to meet the hardened crystals. Kalutunah stopped 

 frequently for this purpose ; and, upon trying the ex- 

 periment with my own sledge, I found it to w^ork ad- 

 mirably, and to produce a very perceptible difference 

 in the draft. 



It would be needless for me to give from day to 

 day the details of this journey. As I have said be- 

 fore, it was merely experimental, and it was continued 

 until I had satisfied myself fully that the route north- 

 ward by the Greenland coast was wholly impractica- 



