FAST IN THE ICE. 163 



lin, after listening to the explanations and viewing the 

 articles, tersely remarked, " Your electric machine is 

 not worth a damn, and your anemometer is just the 

 same." The telephone he seemed to consider a good 

 thing. 



The electric machine, after having received Mel- 

 ville's attention, had been in hand for some days un- 

 reeling and reinsulating, and reeling again the wires, 

 and was now ready for another trial. Steam was ac- 

 cordingly raised in the Baxter boiler, and the genera- 

 tor connected ; but though seventy pounds steam was 

 applied, not a spark even could be obtained, nor a de- 

 flection in the galvanometer needle. The only effect 

 was to fill the deck-house with the fearful smoke of 

 burning blubber, and to make it dripping wet from 

 condensing steam and the shower of rain falling from 

 the roof. I concluded that time enough had been lost 

 in trying to make this machine of use, and I would no 

 longer keep the finishing of the deck-house in abey- 

 ance, and hence I ordered the engine struck below into 

 the old galley-room, and cleaned and painted for laying 

 by. Our telegraph wires are broken in several places 

 this morning from their own weight, increased by a 

 slight amount of frost. We have tried laying them in 

 the snow, but it has rotted them through and through. 

 Bare copper wire No. 24 is evidently not the thing. 

 When we get our first heavy fall of snow I shall try 

 running them again, but I begin to fear that Franklin 

 is right in both his statements. The hunters brought 

 in three seals to-day as a pleasant thing to contemplate 

 after being disgusted with electric experiments, and at 

 supper to-night we had a new dish offered us, — walrus 

 sausage, — and a rare good thing it is. Bear, seal, and 

 walrus are not to be despised, and I agree with Chipp, 



