INTENSE COLD EXPERIENCED. 171 



destined, as it proved, to be their home for nearly ten months. The animals had nearly all 

 left; seals were not found in the neighbourhood; even gulls and ducks avoided Melville Island, 

 where the only vegetation consisted of stunted grasses and lichens. The cold was intense, 

 and such experiences as the following did not offer much inducement for prolonged trips- 

 from the vessels. 



One John Pearson, a marine, had imprudently gone out without his mittens, to attempt 

 hunting, and with a musket in his hands. A party from the ships found him, although the 

 night was very dark, just as he had fallen down a bank of snow, and was beginning to feel 

 that degree of torpor and drowsiness which, if indulged, inevitably proves fatal. " When he- 

 was brought on board/' says Parry, " his fingers were quite stiff, and bent into the shape of 

 that part of the musket which he had been carrying ; and the frost had so far destroyed the 

 animation in his fingers on one hand that it was necessary to amputate three of them a short 

 time after, notwithstanding all the care and attention paid to him by the medical gentle- 

 men. The effect which exposure to severe frost has in benumbing the mental as well a& 

 the corporeal faculties was very striking in this man, as well as in two of the young gentlemen 

 who returned after dark, and of whom we were anxious to make inquiries respecting Pearson, 

 When I sent for them into my cabin, they looked wild, spoke thick and indistinctly, and it was 

 impossible to draw from them a rational answer to any of our questions. After being on 

 board for a short time the mental faculties appeared gradually to return with the returning 

 circulation ; and it was not till then that a looker-on could easily persuade himself that they 

 had not been drinking too freely." At other times excursions were made when the ther- 

 mometer was 40 or 50 U below zero without special inconvenience. The fact is that one's 

 safety or danger much depends on the absence or prevalence of wind. Even the natives 

 of extreme latitudes have been frozen to death during its prevalence. On February 24th, 

 1820, a fire broke out in their house ashore, and in their anxiety to save the valuable instru- 

 ments it contained, sixteen men incurred frost-bite, the thermometer on that day being from 

 - 43 to 44 (76 C below freezing). One man, by incautiously leaving his gloves off, had 

 afterwards to suffer the amputation of most of his fingers. When he arrived on board his 

 hands were plunged in cold water, the surface of which was immediately covered with a skin of 

 ice by the cold suddenly communicated ! "The appearance/' says Parry, " which our faces pre- 

 sented at the fire was a curious one, almost every nose and cheek having become quite white 

 with frost-bites in five minutes after being exposed to the weather ; so that it was deemed 

 necessary for the medical gentlemen, together with some others appointed to assist them, to go 

 constantly round while the men were working at the fire, and to rub with snow the parts 

 affected, in order to restore animation/' 



On the 16th day of February the greatest degree of cold was experienced, the thermometer 

 having descended to 55, and remained for fifteen hours at 54; the less to have been 

 expected as the old year had closed with mild weather. On the following day, Parry says, 

 " notwithstanding the low temperature of the external atmosphere, the officers contrived to act, 

 as usual, the play announced for this evening ; but it must be confessed that it was almost too 

 cold for either the actors or the audience to enjoy it, especially those of the former who under- 

 took to appear in female dresses." As early as March the snow commenced to melt, according 

 to Parry's statement. This, however, could only possibly mean under the rays of the midday 



