THE LAST OF THE JEANNETTE. 521 



February 24th, Thursday. — Another instance of 

 extraordinary change of temperature in twenty-four 

 hours. Yesterday we had minus 42.5°, and to-day we 

 get minus 1° ! Who wants more than that to make 

 him happy ? A fine easterly gale, however, explains 

 the warmth. Although the clouds of drifting snow 

 threaten to bury us as usual, we are somewhat sur- 

 prised at having good large flakes fall at nine P. m. 



February 2oth, Friday. — A gale blowing all day 

 from E. S. E., and temperature steadily falls to minus 

 14°. 



I am strangely inclined to think that we are skim- 

 ming along close to the line of comparatively deep wa- 

 ter, and while making some northing are making more 

 westing, agreeably to the shape of the coast line of Si- 

 beria, and that when the ice in these rivers breaks up 

 we may be shot out to the northward far enough to 

 get into water sufficiently deep to give these floes a 

 chance to break up and expose some navigable lanes. 

 Nous verrons. 



February 2Qth, Saturday. — Latitude 75° 11', longi- 

 tude 170° 31' E., a drift since the 19th of seventeen 

 and three quarter miles N. 56° W. The E. S. E. gale 

 continues twenty-six to twenty-one miles an hour until 

 noon, and after this it moderates, and by midnight has 

 backed to E. eleven miles an hour. The temperature 

 rapidly falls as the barometer rises, and the clouds clear 

 away so that after three p. m. we have an absolutely 

 cloudless sky. 



February 27th, Sunday. — I am sorry to record that 

 Alexey is on the sick-list with an annoying trouble. A 

 cicatrice has opened on his leg, having been irritated 

 and inflamed by the tight lacing of his moccasin, — a 

 regular habit with him, — and has become an ulcer of 



