THE ARCTIC DAY. 
31 
crevasses seen in the Alpine glaciers. It was com- 
pletely cut up with jagged ridges and intervening 
hollows, through some of which the water of the sur- 
face drainage fell in little cascades. 
The night had now left us : we were in the contin- 
uous sunlight of the Arctic summer. I copy the en- 
tries from my journal of the 17th. 
" We are just ' turning in,' that is, seeking our den 
for sleep. It has heen a long day, hut to me a God- 
send, so clear and fogless. My time-piece points to 
half past nine, and yet the sunshine is streaming down 
the little hatchway. 
"Our Arctic day has commenced. Last night we 
read the thermometer without a lantern, and the 
hinnacle was not lighted up. To-day the sun sets 
after ten, to rise again hefore two ; and during the 
bright twilight interval he will dip but a few degrees 
below the horizon. We have followed him for some 
time past in one scarcely varying track of brightness. 
The words night and day begin to puzzle me, as I rec- 
ognize the arbitrary character of the hour cycles that 
have borne these names. Indeed, I miss that soothing 
tranquillizer, the dear old darkness, and can hardly, as 
I give way to sleep, hid the mental good-night which 
travelers like to send from their darkened pillows to 
friends at home. 
" Only one iceberg was seen to-day. The sun was 
behind it, his low rays lighting up the sea with crim- 
son, and defining the black shadow of the herg like a 
silhouette. While we were watching it, one of those 
changes of equilibrium, so frequent in partially sub- 
merged ice, caused it first to tremble, and then to roll 
in long oscillating curves. At the same moment, myr- 
iads of birds, which had roosted unseen in its inhos- 
