THE RETURN OF DAYLIGHT. 245 



shifts of wind. Wrangel Land sighted S. by W. At 

 two it was much raised by refraction and inverted by 

 mirage. 



February 8tJi, Sunday. — Upon inspecting the ship at 

 noon to-day I found the temperature in the deck-house 

 to be 18°, and lest our bilge-pumps should freeze be- 

 yond our control, I ordered a fire to be lighted under 

 the Baxter boiler. As it will be several days before the 

 work is finished which Melville has on hand, I thought 

 this would be a good chance to see whether we could 

 control the leak by the Baxter and the bilge-pump 

 alone. Accordingly when steam was ready in the Bax- 

 ter we closed, or rather attempted to close, the gates 

 in the water-tight bulkhead. The port gate went down 

 all right, but the starboard one seemed to be out of 

 gear, for we could not get it down all the way, nor 

 open it wide« To get at the gates, access must be had 

 to a little space between the after bulkhead of the fore- 

 hold and the forward side of the coal bunker. We com- 

 menced to break out the provisions and other stores 

 with which this space is filled. The work of pumping 

 the water, up to three P. m., had been done by running 

 the Sewell pump thirty-five strokes per minute. When 

 the Baxter commenced to run, the Sewell was put in 

 operation only fifteen minutes in every hour. But it 

 must be borne in mind that the bilge-pump suction is 

 six inches from the bottom, and that the water has to 

 flow over the keelson in the fire-room before the pump 

 can take it. Our experiment has come to nothing, be- 

 cause, owing to leaky gate, water will flow aft into fire- 

 room, and a pump must be kept going there. 



I found the ship in as orderly a condition as could be 

 expected under the circumstances. Everything being 

 broken out from below forward, had to be piled up in 



