7S Analyses of Books. [July, 



gradually thawed, as they acquired the temperature of the 

 cabin. When a candle was placed in a certain direction from 

 the instrument, with respect to the observer, a number of very 

 minute spicuhc of snow were also seen sparkling around the 

 instrument at the distance of two or three inches from it, occa- 

 sioned, as we supposed, by the cold atmosphere produced by 

 the low temperature of the instrument almost instantaneously 

 congealing into that form the vapour which floated in its 

 immediate neighbourhood." 



At noon on Jan. 11, the temperature of the atmosphere had 

 got down to 49° below zero, being nearly the greatest degree of 

 cold Capt. Parrv experienced ; but the weather being quite calm, 

 he continues, " we walked on shore for an hour without incon- 

 venience, the sensation of cold depending much more on the 

 decree of wind at the time than on the absolute temperature of 

 the atmosphere, as indicated by the thermometer. In several of 

 the accounts given of those countries in which an intense degree 

 of natural cold is experienced, some effects are attributed to it 

 which certainly did not come under our observation in the course 

 of this winter. The first of these is the dreadful sensation said 

 tc be produced on the lungs, causing them to feel as if torn 

 asunder, when the air is inhaled at a very low temperature. No 

 such sensation was ever experienced by us, though in going 

 from the cabins to the open air, and vice versa, we were con- 

 stantly in the habit, for some months, of undergoing a change 

 of from 80° to 100°, and, in several instances, 120° of tempera- 

 ture in less than one minute ; and what is still more extraordi- 

 nary, not a single inflammatory complaint, beyond a slight cold 

 which was cured by common care in a day or two, occurred 

 during this particular period. The second is, the vapour with 

 which the air of an inhabited room is charged condensing into 

 a shower of snow, immediately on the opening cf a door or win- 

 dow communicating with the external atmosphere. This goes 

 much beyond any thing we had an opportunity of observing. 

 What happened with us was simply this : on the opening of the 

 doors at the top and bottom of our hatchway ladders, the vapour 

 was immediately condensed by the sudden admission of the cold 

 air, into a visible form, exactly resembling a very thick smoke, 

 which settled on all the pannels of the doors and bulk-heads, and 

 immediately froze, by which means the latter were covered with 

 a thick coating of ice which it was frequently necessary to scrape 

 ofl"; but we never, to my knowledge, witnessed the conversion 

 of the vapour into snow during its fall." 



Capt. Parry remarks, that the lower rigging of the ship became 

 very slack during the severity of the winter, and again became 

 tight as the warmer weather came on. He mentions this fact, 

 because the ';ircumstance of its becoming slack by the cold is 

 at variance with the accounts of other navigators. 



On Feb. 14 and 15, for 15^- hours, during which time the 



