UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 337 



May Uli, Tuesday. — Our experience on this cruise 

 may not only be of advantage to ourselves but it may 

 serve to accomplish an improvement in some articles 

 of Arctic outfit. On one occasion when Melville and I 

 sat looking at our stove and wondering if it could not 

 be made to answer more than one purpose (for so eco- 

 nomical have we become that nothing seems valualjle 

 for future equipment that cannot do at least two 

 things), the question came up as to whether a stove 

 might not be made to distill water as well as keep a 

 room or cabin warm. Melville promptly said yes, it 

 could be done, and that even our cabin stove might be 

 made to distill, with some additional fittings, a small 

 quantity of water ; but that the necessity of arranging 

 those fittings, so that the salt or scale mis^ht be re- 

 moved as it accumulated, would involve such a dispro- 

 portionate amount of gearing for the result gained, 

 wdtli so much additional consumption of fuel, that we 

 w^ould be not as Avell oft" as with our present distiller, 

 especially as we have to pump by steam. Recurring 

 to the subject to-day I asked him to give me his plan 

 of such an apparatus as would heat and distill with the 

 greatest economy, for some possible Arctic ship in the 

 future. I am so convinced that he has sofved a great 

 problem and produced an incalculably valuable article 

 of outfit, that I would be almost sufficiently ready to 

 undertake another Arctic voyage for the express pur- 

 pose of proving it. 



Should we be so fortunate as to return without having 

 had the scurvy break out among us, I think it will be 

 because we had pure water to drink, for I do not think 

 that our situation is thus far any less prejudicial to 

 general health than the Tegethoff's or De Haven's 

 Expedition, both of which wintered in the pack and 



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