Chap. X. FRANKLIN AND RICHARDSON'S JOURNEY. 361 



Captain Franklin has given a description and 

 plan ; but as Parry has supplied both, obtained 

 from the very same people, they need not here be 

 repeated. Franklin says, — " The purity of the 

 material of which the house was framed, the ele- 

 gance of its construction, and the transparency of 

 its walls, which transmitted a very pleasant light, 

 gave it an appearance far superior to a marble 

 building, and one might survey it with feelings 

 somewhat akin to those produced by the contem- 

 plation of a Grecian temple reared by Phidias; 

 both are triumphs of art, inimitable in their kinds." 

 Like many of the Grecian temples, they too are 

 covered by domes, built on the principle of an arch, 

 which is perfectly understood by them. We have 

 had many learned disquisitions on the origin of the 

 arch, which some say was copied from nature ; the 

 poor isolated Esquimaux, evidently an original 

 people, unlike to any other in physical appearance, 

 had nature only to consult, in which, with their own 

 ingenuity, as we have learned from Parry, they are 

 by no means deficient. 



In December, Franklin has given a statement of 

 the severity of the cold, which is not more intense 

 than Back experienced : — 



" The weather during this month was the coldest we ex- 

 perienced during our residence in America. The thermo- 

 meter sunk on one occasion to 57° below zero, and never 

 rose beyond 6° above it ; the mean for the month was — 29 0, 7. 



