CHAP.VJ.] INAUSPICIOUS COLD. 38 



g 



contrived to make goggles with crape over the 

 ends, instead of glass, with other devices not 

 without ingenuity. The most distressing event, 

 however, was another instance of a relapse, in 

 the person of Mr. Mould the assistant surgeon, 

 who was very lame and altogether far from well. 

 Gibbs, too, could not but be considered in an 

 extremely precarious state, and his limbs, poor 

 fellow, were dreadfully shrunk, and so weak, that 

 he could not walk the length of the lower deck 

 without assistance. In clearing away the ice 

 from the fractured parts of the stern-post, apiece 

 of its doubling two feet six inches in length, ex- 

 tending from the four feet six inches mark to the 

 seven feet, and consequently under water, was 

 brought up by the carpenters, who further 

 ascertained that the outer stern-post had been 

 forced aft, and at the eight feet eight inches 

 mark it had opened from the wooden ends one 

 inch and a quarter. The night brought no change, 

 and on July 1st the work was continued as before, 

 but so cold had it been, that not only was ice 

 formed on the fresh pools, but young ice was 

 seen even round the edge of the floe on the sea 

 water ; a strange phenomenon in the middle of 

 summer, and not very auspicious for our hopes ; 

 and, indeed an open passage could now hardly be 

 expected, if we were tojudge from what surrounded 

 us, for the entire body of ice was not only closely 



