LANCASTER SOUND. 255 
December 13. A little clearer than yesterday, but 
too dark to read small print at noon. Something like 
a long reach of land looming up to southward : it can 
not be Croker's Bay ? 
"All our mess took our tour of practice to-day, with 
a sledge and four hundred pounds of provender. Hard 
work, and sweating abundantly ; but we feel already 
the good effects of this sort of exercise. Thermometer 
at -11°. 
"December 14. A quiet day ; the winds at rest, and 
the stars twinkling through the hazy sky as I never 
saw them before. The moon, too, is in high heaven, 
almost a three-quarter disk. She is a great comfort 
to us ; her high northern declination makes her visible 
all the time. It looks strangely this undying fortnight 
moon. The frost-smoke is wreathing the red zone of 
our southern horizon. It would be a good night-scene 
for a painter. 
"At 7 P.M. the thermometer rose from —3° to — 1°. 
At 10 o'clock it was —4°. Its maximum was + 10°, a 
temperature mild and comfortable. The wind changed 
from west by south to west by north, and the ice and 
the drift are as yesterday. 
"A poor bear, fired at last night by Mr. Carter, was 
found this morning, about three hundred yards from 
the ship, dead. H-e was wedged .between two slabs 
of ice, and in his agony had rubbed his muzzle deep 
into the frozen snow. Twice he had stopped to lie 
down during his death- walk, marking each place with 
a large puddle of blood, which branched out over the 
floe like crimson-streaked marble. He measured eight 
feet four inches from tip to tip. I killed a fox ; but 
missing his head, opened the large arteries of the neck, 
and spoiled his pelt. The temperature at the orifice 
