Chap. VIII. PARRY'S THIRD VOYAGE. 245 



passed in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions, except 

 when variety happens to be afforded by intercourse with 

 some other branch of ' the whole family of man.' Winter 

 after winter, nature here assumes an aspect so much alike, 

 that cursory observation can scarcely detect a single feature 

 of variety. The winter of more temperate climates, and 

 even in some of no slight severity, is occasionally diversified 

 by a thaw, which at once gives variety and comparative 

 cheerfulness to the prospect. But here, when once the 

 earth is covered, all is dreary monotonous whiteness — not 

 merely for days or weeks, but for more than half a year 

 together. Whichever way the eye is turned, it meets a 

 picture calculated to impress upon the mind an idea of 

 inanimate stillness, of that motionless torpor with which our 

 feelings have nothing congenial ; of anything, in short, but 

 life. In the very silence there is a deadness with which a 

 human spectator appears out of keeping. The presence of 

 man seems an intrusion on the dreary solitude of this wintry 

 desert, which even its native animals have for a while 

 forsaken." — pp. 40, 41. 



Among* the winter arrangements, Captain Parry 

 speaks in the highest terms of Silvester's " warm- 

 ing apparatus," to which he ascribes the comforts 

 and conveniences, and with them the general health 

 of the seamen, which exceeded those of any former 

 experience — " a contrivance," he says, " of which I 

 scarcely know how to express my admiration in 

 adequate terms." 



" The alteration adopted on this voyage of placing this 

 stove in the very bottom of the hold, produced not only the 

 effect naturally to be expected from it, of increasing the 

 rapidity of the current of warm air, and thus carrying it to 

 all the officers' cabins with less loss of heat in its passage ; 



