384 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap 



owl, a species of raven and the ptarmigan wintered in the 

 region, the last named being occasionally snowed up. 



The ptarmigan here is not indeed so plump and good as the 

 Spitzbergen ptarmigan during winter, but in any case provided 

 us with an always welcome, if scanty change from the tiresome 

 preserved meat. When some ptarmigan were shot, they were 

 therefore willingly saved up by the cook, along with the hares, 

 for festivals. For in order to break the monotony on board an 

 opportunity was seldom neglected that offered itself for holding 

 festivities. Away there on the coast of the Chukch peninsula 

 there were thus celebrated with great conscientiousness during 

 the winter of 1878-9, not only our own birthdays but also those 

 of King Oscar, King Christian and King Humbert, and of the 

 Emperor Alexander. Every day a newspaper was distributed, 

 for the day indeed, but for a past year. In addition we numbered 

 among our diversions constant intercourse with the natives, and 

 frequent visits to the neighbouring villages, driving in dog- 

 sledges, a sport which would have been very enjoyable if the 

 dogs of the natives had not been so exceedingly poor and bad, 

 and finally industrious reading and zealous studies, for which I 

 had provided the expedition with an extensive library, intended 

 both for the scientific men and oflQcers, and for the crew, 

 numbering with the private stock of books nearly a thousand 

 volumes. 



All this time of course the purely scientific work was not 

 neglected. In the first rank among these stood the meteoro- 

 logical and magnetical observations, which from the 1st November 

 were made on land every hour. However fast the ice lay 

 around the vessel it was impossible to get on it a sufficiently 

 stable base for the magnetical variation instrument. The 

 magnetical observatory was therefore erected on land of the 

 finest building material any architect has had at his disposal, 

 namely, large parallelopipeds of beautiful blue-coloured ice- 

 blocks. The building was therefore called by the Chukches 

 Tintimjaranga (the ice-house), a name which was soon adopted 

 by the Vega men too. As mortar the builder, Palander, used 

 snow mixed with water, and the whole was covered with a 

 roof of boards. But as after a time it appeared that the storm 

 made its way through the joints and that these were gradually 

 growing larger in consequence of the evaporation of the ice 

 so that the drifting snow could find an entrance, the whole 

 house had a sail drawn over it. As supports of the three 

 variation instruments large blocks of wood were used, whose 

 lower ends were sunk in pits, which, with great trouble, were 

 excavated in the frozen ground, and then, when the block 

 supports were placed, were filled with sand mixed with water. 



The ice-house was a spacious observatory, well-fitted for its 



