236 
THE DAYLIGHT. 
(19th) until this morning at 9 A.M., hauling round 
from southeast to east-southeast. After this last hour, 
it gradually died away ; and now, at 3 P.M., we have 
a gentle breeze from the same quarter. The wind has 
left the north since the 18th. 
" Our temperature, which on the 18th gave us —27°, 
the lowest we have yet recorded, was at the close of 
the next day but —6° ; and to-day its extreme was —4°. 
Now, by gradual elevation, it has reached zero. 
" Zero once more, and a positive sensation of warmth ! 
There was no wind ; and the haze vapors so softened 
this once greatest cold, that I walked about with bare 
hands and sweating body. 
" The daylight is hardly now worthy of the name, 
according to the Philadelphia notions of the blessing; 
but to us it is the last leaf of the sibyl. Here is a lit- 
tle record of its incomings and outgoings, 
" 9 A.M. Breakfast over ; furs on ; deck covered in 
with black felt, the frozen condensation patching it 
with large white wafers of snow. A lantern makes it 
barely light enough to walk. No red streak to the 
east : one misty haze of visible darkness. 
"10 A.M. A twilight gloom: can just see the Azi- 
muth, with its tripod stand, thirty yards off on the ice. 
Snow whirling in drifts. 
"11 A.M. Can read newspaper print by going to 
open daylight, i. e., twilight — the twilight of a foggy 
sunrise at home. 
"12 M. Noonday. A streak of brown red looms up 
above the mist to the south. Save a little more light 
from the 'foggy sunrise' of 11 A.M., no great percep- 
tible difference ; yet I can now read the finest print 
easily. 
" 1 P.M. Very decidedly more hazy than at 11, the 
