THROUGH THE "GREAT NIGHT" 83 



was so low as apparently to emanate from the water, 

 and at irregular intervals the faint patches of auroral 

 light would disappear completely to be replaced a 

 moment later by a single bright spot like a pale par- 

 helion close to the water. Occasionally in place of 

 the parhelion a bright narrow vertical bar of light 

 appeared. The i6th was marked by pronounced 

 barometric and thermometric fluctuations, the former 

 downward, the latter upward, these abrupt changes 

 followed by violent wind from the south, and this in 

 turn by a mile- wide belt of water reaching from behind 

 Rawson past the ship and Cape Sheridan, and so 

 northward toward Henry as far as could be seen in 

 the obscure moonlight. 



The view from the hill in the evening was striking. 

 The brilliant moonlight; the sky blue-black except 

 where flecked with silvery clouds; the dead white 

 of the ice ; the inky blackness of the water ; the ghostly 

 shapes of the land; the one tiny speck of yellow light 

 shining out from the Roosevelt. Accompanying and 

 adding a touch of action to this outlook was the 

 rush of the wind which, although laden with drifting 

 snow, seemed yet to have a touch of warmth in it, 

 and the cries of the Eskimo children playing on the 

 ice-foot, mingled with the sound of waves dashing 

 against the edges of the lead, and the distant hoarse 

 roar of the ice pack surging back with the flood tide 

 into the mouth of Robeson Channel. 



The 25th was marked by groans and complaint from 

 the Roosevelt and the ice about her, accompanied by loud 

 roaring of the heavier floes as they ground past the point 

 of Sheridan during the greater portion of the flood-tide. 



