366 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



light of home memories, the polar star. Stretching my neck to look uncom- 

 fortably at the indication of our extreme northernness, it was hard to realize 

 that he was not directly overhead ; and it made me sigh as I measured the few 

 degrees of distance that separated our zenith from the pole over which he hung. 



" Oct. 28. — The moon has reached her greatest northern declination of about 

 25° 35'. She is a glorious object ; sweeping around the heavens, at the lowest 

 part of her curve, she is still 14° above the horizon. For eight days she has 

 been making her circuit with nearly unvarying brightness. It is one of those 

 sparkling nights that bring back the memory of sleigh-bells and songs, and 

 glad communings of hearts in lands that are far away. 



" Nov. 7. — The darkness is coming on with insidious steadiness, and its ad- 

 vances can only be perceived by comparing one day with its fellow of some 

 time back. We still read the thermometer at noonday without a light, and the 

 black masses of the hills are plain for about five hours, with their glaring patch- 

 es of snow; but all the rest is darkness. The stars of the sixth magnitude 

 shine out at noonday. Except upon tho island of Spitzbergen, which has the 

 advantages of an insular climate, and tempered by ocean currents, no Chris- 

 tians have wintered in so high a latitude as this.* They are Russian sailors 

 who made the encounter there — men inured to hardships and cold. Our dark- 

 ness has ninety days to run before we shall get back again even to the con- 

 tested twilight of to-day. Altogether our winter will have been sunless for one 

 hundred and forty days. 



" N'ov. 9. — Wishing to get the altitude of the cliffs on the south-west cape 

 of our bay before the darkness set in thoroughly, I started in time to reach 

 them with my Newfoundlanders at noonday, the thermometer indicating 23° 

 below zero. Fireside astronomers can hardly realize the difficulties in the way 

 of observations at such low temperatures. The breath, and even the warmth 

 of the face and body, cloud the sextant-arc and glasses with a fine hoar-frost. 

 It is, moreover, an unusual feat to measure a base-line in the snow at 55° below 

 freezing. 



"iVby. 21. — ^We have schemes innumerable to "cheat the monotonous soli- 

 tude of our winter — a fancy ball ; a newspaper, ' The Ice Blink a fox-chase 

 round the decks. 



15. — We have lost the last vestige of our midday twilight. We can 

 not see print, and hardly paper ; the fingers can not be counted a foot from 

 the eyes. Noonday and midnight are alike ; and, except a vague glimmer in 

 the sky that seems to define the hill outlines to the south, we have nothing to 

 tell us that this Arctic world of ours has a sun. In the darkness, and consequent 

 inaction, it is almost in vain that we seek to create topics of thought, and, by a 

 forced excitement, to ward off the encroachments of disease. 



'^Jan. 21. — First traces of returning light, the southern horizon having for 

 a short time a distinct orange tinge. 



^^Feh. 21. — We have had the sun for some days silvering the ice between 

 the headlands of the bay, and to-day, towards noon, I started out to be the 



* Rensselaer Harbor is situated 1° 46' higher than Sir E. Belcher's winter-quarters in Northumber- 

 land Sound, 76° 52'c 



