154 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
the united exertions of all concerned, two hours 
were spent very happily on the quarter-deck, 
notwithstanding the thermometer outside the ship 
stood at zero, and within, as low as the freezing 
point, except close to the stoves, where it was a 
few degrees higher. 
Monday, 8th.— The weather was very bright to- 
day, so that we had several hours’ twilight, nearly 
as Clear as if the sun had been above the horizon 
in hazy weather. At noon, indeed, the sun must 
have been very near the horizon, by refraction, for 
the sky over it was very beautifully illuminated, 
of a bright reddish colour, which vanished gradu- 
ally in its intensity towards the zenith. An ex- 
periment was made to-day on a piece of ice, simi- 
lar to that which was performed at Petersburg at 
the marriage of the late Emperor of Russia. — I 
allude to the ice-guns that were used on that oc- 
casion. That which we made, however, hardly 
deserved to be called a gun, at least when com- 
pared with those in question, for the block of ice 
which was used was only about three feet long, two 
feet broad, and a foot and a half in thickness ; and 
the bore, which was made with a two-inch augur, 
was about two feet in length ; it was loaded with 
three ounces of powder, but when fired, instead 
of going off like the Russian ice-guns, it burst 
into a thousand fragments. Ice formed on salt- 
water is, from its porosity, very little calculated 
for an experiment of this sort; and if it were in- 
tended to withstand the shock of the explosion, 
the mass, I presume, ought to be larger than that 
which we used. It was, however, the thickest 
