156 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MIRANDA, 



transparent that we could see a half-mile, or even a mile, in 

 every direction from the ship, the water would drip like rain 

 from the rigging and every exposed surface, and our beards 

 and clothes would be rapidly covered with fine drops. 



Even those surface fogs which rested on the water under 

 a clear sky, and which shut out the horizon, but with the sun 

 shining through from above, were very wet. The ship's rig- 

 ging, and even our beards, would drip, furnishing surface for 

 condensation. On our return, and when in the dense, opaque 

 fogs met with south of New England, I noticed the marked 

 contrast in their wetness, so to speak. At times, when we 

 could not see a ship's length, the air did not behave as if it 

 was entirely saturated. The decks of the ship would dry 

 after scrubbing, and other wet but exposed objects would 

 dry even in the fog. The dust-particles in the air over these 

 southern waters were ample to collect all the moisture, and 

 more too ; while in the Greenland fogs, condensation went on 

 as if there was not dust enough in the air to supply the 

 demand. 



The fogs we met with in Vineyard Sound, before and after 

 the collision with the schooner Dora M. French, were strik- 

 ingly white and opaque, as contrasted with all those encoun- 

 tered in the Greenland seas, but were damp rather than wet. 



All the rains observed north of latitude 53° differed from 

 the summer rains at home in that they consisted only of small 

 drops — mist rather than rain. For example, the heaviest 

 rain we had at Sukkertoppen occurred on August 11. Nu- 

 merous rills streamed from the rocky heights in small cas- 

 cades, and streams poured from the scuppers of the ship, but 

 the rain was a fine mist. It seemed strange that such misty 

 rain, falling so noiselessly, could possibly wet so fast as this 

 did. The same fact was noticed in numerous other rains, 

 both in the harbor at Sukkertoppen and outside. In the 

 heavy storm in Davis Straits, in which the Miranda was 



