TO THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 139 
as the sun gets lower, its utility as a distinguishing 
mark will be more perceptible. The weather, for 
these three or four days past, has, considering the 
time of the year, been tolerably fine, and the mean 
temperature has not been much lower than we have 
had it for a week before ; but we experience that 
the degree of cold indicated by the thermometer, 
and that conveyed by our feelings, are widely 
different, for whenever there is a breeze of wind 
we find that it is much more disagreeable to walk 
about, when the thermometer is at twenty degrees 
above zero, than when it is at zero itself in a calm. 
I do not mean to say, however, that this is any new 
discovery : on the contrary, I am aware that the 
same thing may be felt and observed, in any other 
climate as well as here; but I have for some time 
past observed another fact, which, for aught I am 
aware of, may be also equally well known, though 
certainly it never struck me so_ forcibly be- 
fore. It is, that whenever the wind increases in 
strength, the thermometer rises, and vice versa ; 
however, as we shall have many opportunities of 
observing the extent of this rule, or connection 
between the wind and temperature, I shall defer 
saying any thing more about it till then. The 
canal is now frozen so firmly from one end to the 
other, that we can only just distinguish where it 
was, so that the ships are now as firmly fixed, as if 
they were a component part of the floe itself. In 
case, however, that the ice breaks up in consequence 
of any unforeseen cause, anchors have been set in 
the beach, to which a cable is fast from each ship’s 
larboard bow, and another from their quarter. 
