THE LAST OF THE JEANNETTE. 5Q7 



An extraordinary feature is the marvelous height to 

 which the barometer has risen. Beginning to-day at 

 30.55 it reaches 31.7 by midnight, and is not fin- 

 ished yet in its ascent. Something unusual may be an- 

 ticipated with respect to the weather as a sequence to 

 this state of things. 



A bright red glow showed on the southern horizon at 

 noon, and a warm red glow in southwest at three p. m., 

 — welcome signs of the approaching return of our long 

 absent sun. Already I have considerable daylight in 

 my room at noon, — not enough to read by, to be sure, 

 but still enough to enable me to do without my perpet- 

 ual candle, and to look at the ghastly shapes of my fur- 

 niture with a sense of pleasant relief to my eyes as I 

 peer around me from my easy chair. Inspection and 

 divine service followed our usual morning occupations. 

 It would be endless repetition to say we have a per- 

 fectly dry berth deck and not a sign of drip. 



January 2Qth, Wednesday. — One thing may be said 

 of .this winter which we could not say of the last, that 

 if we have had plenty of cold weather we have also had 

 some remarkable changes to higher temperatures. Two 

 days ago we had minus 50° to contemplate, and now we 

 are sweltering at and above it. What these sudden 

 changes may portend I cannot say, and what physical 

 circumstances they ma}^ indicate I am in no position yet 

 to affirm. But to my perhaps too sanguine imagination, 

 it seems that if we have reached such a changeable part 

 of the world we may reasonably hope for a different 

 experience next summer than we had during its prede- 

 cessor, and perhaps get adrift from these remorseless 

 prison walls of ice that have held us so firmly for seven- 

 teen months. 



The easterly gale begins with a velocity of twenty- 



