THE DEAD OF WINTER. 231 



trying to the eyes, making me blink like an owl at 

 first, I could not get enough of the pleasant sight. 



I noticed, upon examining carefully every one who 

 came near me, that we have a bleached appearance, 

 which is, I suppose, natural to all Arctic voyagers, and 

 not to be wondered at, considering our steady living 

 by lamplight, and the difficulty of getting proper ex- 

 ercise in this low temperature. However, we are all 

 healthy with one or two exceptions, and I think we 

 may congratulate ourselves on having passed the night 

 of the Arctic regions so successfully. 



As if to give us as much light as possible on this 

 eventful day, when the sun was on the meridian to the 

 southward, the full moon was on the meridian at the 

 northern horizon, so that for these twenty-four hours 

 we had either sunlio;ht or full moonlis^ht all the time. 

 "We managed to find a piece of floe some little distance 

 from the ship, which had not been underridden by a 

 second floe, and we cut through it and sounded in 

 thirty fathoms, muddy bottom, with no indicated drift. 



Our old friend, the north side of Wrangel Land, 

 was in sight to-day quite plainly after the sun went 

 down, on about the same bearings as Avhen last seen 

 and recorded. 



