386 THE GEEMAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



astonished to find that it was no longer 300 paces distant 

 from the ship. It reached nearly to the observatory, 

 and, upon trying to get to Cairn Point, we could not 

 reach it ; the ice was here torn into loose fragments. 

 How about the ice-dam by Walrus Island, so important 

 for our safety ? We could not distinctly see whether 

 it had been broken through, or whether it was still 

 standing. 



It was with peculiar feelings that on the 21st — both the 

 shortest and the darkest day — we walked about on the ice 

 and on the neighbouring land. At home, after such a con- 

 vulsion of nature, everything bears the stamp of destruc- 

 tion ; here nothing showed traces of the fury of the elements 

 but the large and small snow-drifts. White and still all 

 lay around, the polished walls of rock rising dark above 

 them; gloomy and almost foggy was the atmosphere. 

 After the nearly ten days' roar of the storm this quiet 

 had in it something refreshing ; but, in spite of that, we 

 this day felt the deep melancholy impress of the Arctic 

 night. In troubled, unsteady twilight lay the landscape, 

 so that we could only see a few steps before us, and could 

 scarcely see to read fine print. A faint light under the 

 dark clouds in the south was the only sign of day. 



In looking back upon the storm, and reckoning the dates, 

 we first realized what a mighty effort of nature it had been. 

 Without reckoning the forerunners, the real storm had 

 raged 103 hours, blowing with a mean strength on Beau- 

 fort's scale ^ of more than 9. If we take the rate during 

 these 103 hours to be sixty miles (= fifteen German 



* Beaufort scale of 0—12. Nine would imlicate a rate of fifty-six 

 miles per hour. 



