TO THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 159 
during the last days they were employed at it. 
We have the satisfaction to find, too, that the 
discontinuation of cutting the channel above men- 
tioned, has not yet been, nor do I think it is likely 
to be productive of any bad consequences ; on the 
contrary, there is reason to expect, that the snow 
which is accumulating round the ships will be of 
considerable benefit to us, in the way of keeping 
them warm, and in order to do this more effec- 
tually, they have banked the snow up against 
their sides all round, except at one place, where a 
hole is to be kept open in the ice in case of fire. 
Monday, 29th.—A very interesting and curious 
fact was observed this evening, which tends to 
subvert a point that I believe has hitherto been 
received as a general law, namely, that mercury 
does not freeze in a higher temperature than 39 or 
40 degrees below zero. The instance in question 
was simply, that the mercury used by some of 
the officers this evening as an artificial horizon 
whilst taking lunar observations, was found, after 
being four hours exposed in the open air at the 
temperature of 36 degrees below zero, to have 
frozen into a solid mass. The novelty of the thing 
immediately excited attention, and in order to be 
perfectly satisfied that the temperature of the 
atmosphere was not lower than what was indi- 
cated by the thermometer used for registering the 
temperature on board, another thermometer was 
tried, and that also fell to only 36°. The only way 
in which I can account for this strange deviation 
from the general law, is, that the mercury had be- 
