APOLOGY. 
829 
in height. Midway rose a brush-like column of crim- 
son {baryta) light. A series of flame-colored strata, 
alternating with an incomprehensible black cloud, was 
so completely eclipsed by the vertical column, that it 
seemed to cut its way without a diminution of its 
brightness. The whole atmosphere was as warmly 
tinted as in the evenings of Melville Bay. 
Indeed, from the beginning of the month, the skies 
had undergone a sensible change of aspect. Instead 
of the heavy-banked or linear stratus about the hori- 
zon, and the light, cold cirri above, we were getting 
back to something like the fall skies of our own cli- 
mate, the misty bands of morning becoming fleecy as 
the day wore on, and taking the marbled or mackerel 
character before they blended with the western skies. 
I am tempted to apologize, once for all, for the im- 
perfect character of these observations. Our stock of 
instruments on board was scanty at the best, and the 
routine observances of a ship of war do not favor the 
prosecution of merely scientific researches. We had 
no actinometer to mark the daily increments of solar 
radiation: our thermometers were generally of rude 
construction, and were not so placed as to give the 
highest value to their results ; and an entry which I 
find in my journal explains why my barometrical rec- 
ords were so few. 
March 12. To-day, for the first time during the 
cruise, I had the pleasure of seeing our mountain ba- 
rometer released from its stowage, and an attempt 
made to compare it with our aneroids. Before we be- 
gan our drift to the north, when we had no fires below 
to give us a constantly vibrating temperature, and the 
aneroid of the Rescue had not come into the over- 
crowded cabin of our vessel to divide the formalities 
