74 Arctic Natural History. 



the centre. Here, then, we would find a perforation in the 

 frozen crust which envelops the earth's surface in this high 

 latitude. Were it not so, it is highly improbable that the sal- 

 mon could exist between two ices. — {Sutherland's Journal.) 



3. Warmth of Snow-Burrows. 

 Captain Penny suggested the idea of ascertaining what 

 amount of warmth and comfort could be attained in a close 

 burrow in the snow. In November, a single individual raised 

 the temperature of one from 4°, that of the air at the time, to 

 + 20° in about twenty minutes ; but the heat of the snow 

 and the ice must have been much greater than it was at this 

 time. Two burrows, each six and a-half feet long, and two 

 and a-half feet wide, were excavated about six inches above 

 the level of the blue ice, in a wreath which had accumulated 

 during an easterly gale. There was a thickness of at least 

 four feet above each from the surface of the snow down- 

 wards ; and the entrances into both were made so as to shut 

 very closely. A thermometer inclosed in one of them for 

 four hours rose to — 2°, the temperature of the external air 

 at the time being — 29°. Two persons, the capacities of 

 whose lungs were represented by 240 and 210, were inclosed 

 in them for an hour and a quarter, at the end of which time 

 the temperature had risen from — 28°, that of the air, to 

 4- 3° and — 3° respectively ; the person with the most ca- 

 pacious lungs raising it seven degrees higher than the other. 

 To say the most of the burrows, they were not warm ; and 

 closed up in them, as the two persons were, an idea of being 

 buried alive was continually uppermost in their minds. How- 

 ever, there is no doubt, had our circumstances demanded it, 

 we should have overcome this idea, and have appreciated the 

 comforts of burrowing in preference to sleeping in the open 

 air. 



4. Snow a bad conductor of Sound. 

 While inclosed in the burrows, the two persons kept up a 

 conversation through the partition of dense snow that inter- 

 vened between them. They had to bawl loudly to one an- 

 other, although the thickness of the partition did not exceed 

 a foot ; and when they were spoken to through the doorway, 



