Notes on Arctic Air. 35 
land, had not in that time exceeded nineteen below zero, Fahren- 
heit. Dr. Hayes* tells of another reindeer found unfit for use 
after an exposure of but one day in a temperature of ten below 
zero. These cases may possibly be explained by infection from 
within, such as apparently causes the occasional failure of Lister’s 
method in surgery, and renders, as every housewife knows, the 
deep inguinal glands or “ kernel” of a leg of mutton the first part 
to “ go.” 
Such experimental contributions to the subject as I have to 
offer, were made, I regret to say, in ignorance of the approved 
methods of procedure. Professor Tyndall’s observations with 
“the mote-less chamber” and on the air of the Oberland moun- 
tains were made after our departure. Guided by them, some 
future Arctic traveller may well hope to obtain important results 
where I can only supply an isolated fact or two. 
In 1865, as soon as the autumn sledging was over, an attempt 
was made to collect the dust of Arctic air for microscopical exami- 
nation by means of a Pouchet’s apparatus constructed for me by 
the ship’s armourer. 
Its vane was fastened with a check, so that the funnel could 
face the wind from every quarter except from across the ship. It 
was placed at an elevation of twenty-five feet above the sea, on a 
pole fixed in the top of a “floeberg ” ahead of the ship in such a 
position that it could only receive the winds from seaward. I 
- was anxious to examine the wind from the unknown north, but 
unfortunately it rarely blew from that quarter. After we had 
experienced the curious warm winds descending from the opposite 
direction, | moved the apparatus so as to examine them, but it 
was blown away—pole and all—in the very first gale, so that its 
results are limited to the northern winds. I had, however, 
enough experience with it to prove it unsuitable. It was useless 
except in wind, and then both its funnel and the box holding a 
glycerized slide became choked with drifting snow, which often 
filled the air ever higher than the mast-heads. On 13th December, 
after exposure for 40 hours to a north north-west wind of force 1 to 
3 and temperature—15° to—22° Fahrenheit the drop of glycerine 
on the slide contained a few minute colourless cells which were 
not in it when it was placed in the apparatus. They were sooo0 
* Hayes, Open Polar Sea, p. 110. 
SciEN. Proc. R.D.S,, Vou. 0, Pr. 1. D 2 
