666 APPENDIX 



stores from the great hummock had been placed. Its plan was 

 very much like that of the former smithy. We first hollowed 

 out a cavity of sufficient size in the pressure-ridge, and then 

 roofed it over with blocks of ice and snow. 



As the year waned, and the winter night impended, all the 

 sea animals and birds of passage which had swarmed around us 

 and awakened our longings during the short summer deserted 

 us one by one. They set off for the south, towards sunshine and 

 light and hospitable shores, while we lay there in the ice and 

 darkness for yet another winter. On September 6th we saw the 

 last narwhals gambolling in the lanes around the ship, and a 

 few days later the last flock of skuas {Lcst?'is pai'asiticus) took 

 their departure. The sun moves quickly in these latitudes from 

 the first day that he peers over the horizon in the south till he 

 circles round the heavens all day and all night ; but still quicker 

 do his movements seem when he is on the downward path in au- 

 tumn. Before you know where you are he has disappeared, and 

 the crushing darkness of the Arctic night surrounds you once more. 



On September 12th we should have seen the midnight sun 

 for the last time if it had been clear ; and no later than October 

 8th we caught the last glimpse of the sun's rim at midday. 

 Thus we plunged into the longest Arctic night any human 

 beings have yet lived through, in about 85° north latitude. 

 Henceforth there was nothing that could for a moment be 

 called daylight, and by October 26th there was scarcely any 

 perceptible difference between day and night. 



Whenever time permitted and the surface was at all favorable 

 we wandered about on snow-shoes in the neighborhood of the 

 ship, either singly or several together. On October 7th, when 

 all of us were out snow-shoeing in the morning, the mate found 

 a log of drift-wood 7 feet long and 7 inches thick. Part of the 

 root was still attached to the trunk. The mate and I went out 

 in the afternoon and brought it in on a hand-sledge. No doubt 

 it had grown in one of the Siberian forests, had been swept away 

 by a flood or by the current of a river, and carried out to sea to 

 be conveyed hither by the drift-ice. 



Besides snow-shoeing, we also took frequent walks o\\ the ice, 



