216 PREPARING FOR THE WINTER. 
had occasionally modified the position of each ; lout 
their relation to each other continued almost un- 
changed. 
We felt that we were fixed for the winter. We ar- 
ranged our rude embankments of ice and snow around 
us, began to deposit our stores within them, and got 
out our felt covering that was to serve as our winter 
roof. The temperature was severe, ranging from l°-.5, 
and 4° to +10° ; but the men worked v,dth the energy, 
and hope too, of pioneer settlers, when building up 
their first home in our Western forests. 
The closing day of the month was signalized by a 
brilliant meteor, a modification of the parhelion, the 
more interesting to us because the first we had seen. 
'^October 1, Tuesday. To-day the work of breaking 
hold commenced. The coal immediately under the 
main hatch was passed up in buckets, and some five 
tons piled upon the ice. The quarter-boats were haul- 
ed about twenty paces from our port-bow, and the 
sails covered and stacked ; in short, all hands were at 
work preparing for the winter. Little had we calcu- 
lated the caprices of Arctic ice. 
" About ten o'clock A.M. a large crack opened near- 
ly east and west, running as far as the eye could see, 
sometimes crossing the ice-pools, and sometimes break- 
ing along the hummock ridges. The sun and moon 
will be in conjunction on the 3d; we had notice, there- 
fore, that the spring tides are in action. 
" Captain G-riffin had been dispatched with Mr. Lov- 
ell before this, to establish on the shore the site for a 
depot of provisions : at one o'clock a signal was made 
to recall them. At two P.M., seeing a seal, I ran out 
upon the ice ; but losing him, was tempted to continue 
on about a mile to the eastward. The wind, which 
