THE RETURN OF DAYLIGHT. 



275 



fair. Of the twenty-three men and two natives, the 

 condition of twenty is excellent, and of the remaining 

 five good. The only serious case is that of Mr. Danen- 

 hower, which drags along from day to day. Another 

 operation was performed on his eye to-day, and no 

 doubt others will be necessary at short intervals. 



^v, jii^A March od, Wednesday. — At the sug- 

 gestion of Mr. Newcomb I gave an or- 

 der the other day, that whenever the 

 men went away from the ship on their 

 i^^ walks they should keep a lookout for 

 shells or other things on the ice, and 

 bring such articles to the ship. To-day 

 one of the men brought in some shells, 

 and a piece of drift-wood resembling 

 'JI/0 birch, which he had found. It seems he 

 ~^^ saw this piece of 

 ^"^^^ wood in Decem- 

 ^',^[v%^'^^5^^^=:??^^^<^^^ her, but attachins^ 



no importance to 



^^^^^ it, did not remove it. At that tune he 

 says he saw the print of two mocca- 

 sins (and only one print) on the snow 

 covering the floe. As it is not possible 

 that these prints were made by any of 

 the ship's company, it would seem prob- 

 able that this piece of ice came from 

 near some inhabited land; and as the 



W^ drift-wood is no doubt from Siberia, it 

 may be that this piece of ice came from 

 some Siberian river. As in the month 

 of December we were drifting around 



Sketch by Engineer Melville, showing the manner in which the ceiling was crushed by the 

 strain brought on the thwart-ship thrust during ice pressures. The fibre was broken and 

 crushed to a depth of three-quarters of an inch on each side. Water line at A 



iV 



m 



0? art) 



