1876 CONTRACTION OF CHAIN CABLES. 227 



one hundred and eighty yards in length must also 

 have contracted very considerably, for in the autumn 

 they were merely stretched fairly tight ; now they are 

 so much strained that it has been necessary to slack 

 them eight feet. 



' During the evening the southerly wind foretold 

 by the low barometer reached us ; with as usual a 

 very fluctuating temperature. At 9 p.m., while it was 

 almost calm on deck, a sharp squall, force 5, lasting- 

 fifteen minutes, was heard as it passed through the 

 rigging aloft. The temperature rose from minus 52° 

 to minus 30° in fifty-five minutes, and on a sudden 

 change of wind to the northward it fell twenty-one 

 degrees in half an hour. 



' The frequent fluctuations of temperature which 

 Ave have experienced during the winter show how 

 fallacious are comparisons of the temperatures ex- 

 perienced at different positions in the Arctic regions 

 when adopted as the sole guide towards ascertaining 

 the position of greatest cold. A local wind from the 

 southward, blowing up Smith Sound and Eobeson 

 Channel, produces a rise in temperature which would 

 certainly not be experienced at a more sheltered 

 station fifty miles to the westward of our position. 

 Our yearly mean temperature is therefore entirely 

 dependent on the number of southerly disturbing gales 

 which we may experience. 



' Owing to the limited quantity of mist hanging 

 above Eobeson Channel, I infer that this last gale was 

 not sufficiently severe to move the ice there, and that 

 the channel must now be frozen over completely. 

 With a difference in temperature of eighty degrees 



(i 2 



