232 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [April 



' Of the lovers of fresh air, Barne is pre-eminent ; it seems 

 to bore him much to be cooped up on board ; at any rate, in 

 nearly all weathers he is out and about. He generally leaves 

 the ship early in the day with his own special sledge, on which 

 are mounted a sounding machine and a box containing re- 

 versible sea thermometers. With these he vanishes into the 

 darkness and rarely reappears much before dinner. It is 

 a curious sort of picnic life, and one which I imagine would 

 be appreciated by very few. With a few sticks of chocolate 

 in his pocket he journeys away to some distant crack or seal- 

 hole, and there with the assistance of a flickering lantern he 

 spends long hours, often in the intensest cold, letting down 

 a string of thermometers, laboriously winding them to the 

 surface, and recording the temperatures shown at the various 

 depths. Could a more uninviting task be imagined ? Indeed, 

 it is doubtful if it even possesses the advantage of being 

 useful. He sounds in depths of 200 to 400 fathoms, and 

 rarely gets differences of much more than a tenth of a degree 

 in the various layers, as naturally all the water in the strait is 

 close on the freezing-point or something under 29° F. There 

 will be interest, however, if we can continue the series when 

 the summer approaches. 



* Unlike the other officers, our geologist, Ferrar, inhabits 

 a cabin at the fore-end of the ship, and there also is situated 

 his small laboratory, the only one that is habitable under 

 present conditions. Between meals Ferrar is rarely to be 

 seen, for his tasks are numerous. Out on the hillsides and on 

 the floes signs of him can be observed — here a line of sticks, 

 and there a few stones so weirdly disposed that one might 

 almost imagine they served some fetish or enchantment rather 

 than the object of discovering the physical conditions of our 

 surroundings. On board one may see a shaft of ice bending 

 under a weight with a notice, " Do not touch. — H. T. Ferrar." 

 Below one may find the officer himself, sorting a box of 

 geological specimens or polishing a section on his lapidary's 

 wheel, but always busy in some way or another. It is a 

 curious fact that I rarely meet Ferrar in my walks, and yet 



