THE DEAD OF WINTER. 217 



ily from 29.62 to 30. The temperature ran down 

 rapidly, giving us our coldest experience thus far, — 

 beginning at minus 21.5°, it ran steadily down to mi- 

 nus 42° by five p. m., at which temperature our mercu- 

 rial thermometer. No. 4,313, froze solid, and declined 

 to go down any further. Mercurial thermometer No. 

 4,274 kept on, however, and accommodated us at 

 midnight with a reading of minus 44.5°. The two 

 spirit thermometers were slow to realize how cold it was, 

 for No. 4,402 had got only to minus 42° at midnight, and 

 4,397 to minus 41° ; but they may do better hereafter. 

 The weather has been beautiful all day, scarcely a cloud 

 and but little haze preventing the sky from being per- 

 fectly clear. Excepting a slight movement ahead of 

 the ship at seven A. m. the ice let us alone, giving us 

 calm minds to enjoy the cold and the auroral display. 

 Early daylight at 6.55 A. m. As we have had so much 

 clear weather we have seen nothing of the land to the 

 southward. The refraction has caused it at other times 

 to be lifted so much above the horizon that we have 

 been quite misled as to its distance. By our last deter- 

 mination of our position, we are one hundred miles to 

 the northward and eastward of Wrangel Land, suppos- 

 ing its position to be correctly defined on the chart, and 

 yet when we last saw it it was hard to believe it more 

 than fifty miles away. 



A careful measurement of a portion of the turned 

 up floe broken off in the late squeeze gave us a thick- 

 ness of forty-six inches, the result of direct freezing 

 since November 28th. 



January ISih, Sunday. — I inspected the ship at 

 eleven a. m., and found the berth deck fairly dry. By 

 watching the moisture carefully, and wiping it off when- 

 ever it appears, the berths are kept dry ; and by airing 



