PHEPARATIONS FOR WINTERING. 339 



Another contrivance we made for melting the snow. 

 In the chimney of the caboose we constructed a receiver, 

 from the bottom of which a pipe ran through the deck 

 into a barrel, and all snow thrown into the receiver, being 

 melted by the warmth of the chimney, fell into it. 



Diu'ing all these preparations in September and October 

 the days had become visibly shorter and the air colder. 

 As, however, it had not snowed yet, we agreed for the 

 time to surround the ship with a wall of ice-blocks. 

 This we did on the 11th of October. A row of blocks 

 were brought in a line from the stern of the ship to the 

 small bridge near the observatory leading to the land. 

 They were soon frozen fast, and from them a rope was 

 drawn to the land. This erection, already tried by Parry, 

 was also intended to show us the way to the ship in 

 gloomy and snowy weather. We did not then dream of 

 what great service this improvised fence would be to us. 

 Our jolly-boat, too, would more than once have been 

 carried away by the storm had it not found a check to its 

 wild course. 



On the 2nd of November so great a quantity of snow 

 fell that the ship was completely enveloped, and also a 

 thick layer over the moss on deck. And now, when the 

 winter night should come, we were prepared to receive 

 it ; but we had to wait some time longer. 



The whole of October and some part of November 

 we enjoyed the finest autumn weather. We called 

 this, with good reason, late autumn : real winter it was 

 not yet to us. " Fine clear weather with calm," — such 

 was the ever-repeated entry in the ship's log, and we had, 

 indeed, " over Bast Greenland an ever-smiling heaven." 

 Besides the storms of the 19th and 20th, until the 21st of 



