FROST-SMOKE. 
833 
itely ; and were intersected by transverse fissures, 
which so met each other as completely to surround 
our vessels. From this circuit the frost-smoke was 
rising. The thermometer stood at -20°, fifty-two de- 
grees helow the freezing point in the shade ; hut the 
sun was shining brilliantly, raising the mercury to 
+ 10°. Under these circumstances, theoretically so 
favorable, this Arctic phenomenon became the most 
prominent feature in the scene. 
As I stood upon a tall knob of hummock, the en- 
tire horizon seemed to be sending up, exhaling a bronz- 
ine smoke — not the lambent, smoky wreaths which I 
have compared to burning turpentine, but a peculiar 
russet brown smoke, tongued and wreathy when near, 
but at a distance rolling in cumulated masses. These 
seemed to cling at their bases to the surface from which 
they rose, like the discharges of artillery over water, 
or a locomotive steaming over a cold, wet meadow. 
They were wafted by the wind, so as to drive them 
out in lines two or three hundred yards long ; but they 
clung tenaciously to the water and young ice, giving 
us a varying but always narrow horizon of smoke. 
The Rescue was enveloped with the heavy, sooty 
clouds of repeated broadsides. If I had seen the flash- 
ing of guns or the glimmer of burning prairie-grass, I 
should have been less impressed ; so strange, very 
strange, was this ordinary attendant on conflagration 
rolling in the midst of our winteriness. 
