Arctic Natural His tori/. 73 



the inside of his boots after a walk in the open air at a low 

 temperature, and the accumulation of condensed vapour which 

 he finds there will convince him of the active state of the 

 skin. I often found my stockings adhering to the soles of 

 my Kilby's boots after a walk of a few hours. The hoar frost 

 and snow which they contained could not have been there by 

 any other means except exhalation .from the skin. — (Suther- 

 land's Journal of Captain Penny's Voyage to Wellington 

 Channel, in 1850-51, vol. i. 5 p. 404.) 



2. Thickness of the Ice. 



The ships were by this time almost completely banked up 

 with snow, and a gangway of the same material with two 

 parapet walls sloped gradually from the door in the awning 

 to the surface of the ice. The dogs were now located on the 

 ice in a little snow house at the ship's bow, with a quantity 

 of straw between them and the cold and soft ice beneath. 

 The 7 ice in the harbour was upwards of 2 feet thick. Since 

 the 26th of September, when it was 10 or 11 inches, it in- 

 creased at the rate of half-an-inch per day. The ice on Kate 

 Austin Lake presented the same thickness with that in the 

 harbour, although it was 7 or 8 inches thick when the harbour 

 was one continuous sheet of water. This may appear rather 

 strange, seeing that fresh water freezes at a higher tempera- 

 ture than sea water ; but it may be proper to observe that 

 sea water ice, from the saline matter which it contains, will 

 probably conduct the heat faster from the water underneath 

 than fresh water ice, and also, that the saline matter, reduced 

 to a low temperature at the surface, sinks while the water is 

 congealing, and cools the stratum into which it descends. 

 The lakes a little beyond the beach, to which allusion has 

 been made already, were frozen to the bottom, although the 

 depth of some of them was more than 2 feet. This is pro- 

 bably owing to the proximity of the ice on the surface with 

 the bottom, which must conduct the heat away from the water 

 laterally, in addition to the action of the air at the surface. 

 It is not improbable that in the centre of Kate Austin Lake 

 the bottom does not present ice even after the winter has de- 

 voted itself to the extension of the ice from the sides towards 



