MURDOCH.] CL1MATK. 31 



when the sun is continually above tlie horizon, and for about a month 

 before and after this period the twilight is so bright all night that no 

 stars are visible. 



The snowfall during the winter is comparatively small. There is 

 probably not more than a foot of snow on a level anywhere on the land, 

 though it is extremely difficult to measure or estimate, as it is so flue 

 and dry that it is easily moved by the wind and is constantly in motion, 

 forming deep, heavy, hard drifts under all the banks, while many ex 

 posed places, especially the top of the sand beach, are swept entirely 

 clean. The snow begins to soften and melt about the first week iu 

 April, but goes off very slowly, so that the ground is not wholly bare 

 before the middle or end of June. The grass, however, begins to turn 

 green early in June, and a few flowers are seen in blossom as early as 

 June, 7 or 8. 



Rain begins to fall as early as April, but cold, snowy days are not un 

 common later than that date. There is a good deal of clear, calm weather 

 during the, winter, and extremely low temperatures are seldom accom 

 panied by high wind. Violent storms are not uncommon, however, 

 especially iu November, during the latter part of January, and in Feb 

 ruary. One gale from the south and southwest, which occurred January 

 22, 1882, reached a velocity of 100 miles an hour. The most agreeable 

 season of the year is between the middle of May and the, end of July, 

 when the sea opens. After this there is much foggy and cloudy weather. 



Fresh-water ponds begin to freeze about the last week in September, 

 and by the first or second week in October everything is sufficiently 

 frozen for the natives to travel with sledges to fish through the ice of 

 the inland rivers. Melting begins with the thawing of the snow, but the 

 larger ponds are not clear of ice till the middle or end of July. The sea 

 in most seasons is permanently closed by freezing and the moving in of 

 heavy ice fields from about the middle of October to the end of .Inly. 

 The heavy ice in ordinary seasons does not move very far from the shore, 

 while the sea is more or less encumbered with floating masses all summer. 

 These usually ground on a bar wliich runs from the Seahorse Islands 

 along the shore parallel to it and about 1,000 yards distant, forming a 

 &quot;barrier&quot; or &quot;land-floe&quot; of high, broken hummocks, inshore of which 

 the sea freezes over smooth and undisturbed by the pressure of the 

 outer pa&amp;lt;;k. 



Sometimes, however, the heavy pack, under the pressure of violent and 

 long-continued westerly winds, pushes across the bar and is forced up 

 on the beach. The iee sometimes comes in with great rapidity. The 

 natives informed us that a year or two before the station was established 

 the heavy ice came in against the village cliffs, tearing away part of the 

 bank and destroying a house on the edge of the cliff so suddenly that 

 one of the inmates, a large, stout man, was unable to escape through the 

 trap-door and was crushed to death. Outside of the land-floe the ice is 

 a broken pack, consisting of hummocks of fragmentary old and new ice r 

 interspersed with comparatively level fields of the former. During the 



