FIRST ANTARCTIC NIGHT 393 
tient’s skin to the glow of the hottest fire that could be 
obtained. 
The winter passed. It was not without discovery, for 
as the ice was driven about, south, east, west and north, 
with apparently no serious check, it proved that the open 
sea extended far in all directions, and as Bellingshausen’s 
Peter I. Island lay to the north of the drifting ship it was 
clear that the first- found of all Antarctic land was a lonely 
islet and not the immediate outpost of a continent. 
The light returned before the middle of July, when for 
an hour or two about noon the dawn day by day made it 
easy to read for a longer and longer time. Each day 
the colours of the sky at noon grew brighter on the 
northern horizon, and on July 22nd the sun appeared. The 
return of day brought life with it, the health of the ship’s 
company improved, and the scientific observations which 
had dragged heavily were resumed with a fresh zest. 
But the impulse was temporary. The sun brought tem- 
pestuous weather and the cold increased, the lowest tem- 
perature of the whole period being reached on September 
8th, when the thermometer registered 45 degrees below 
zero Fahrenheit and the mercury froze. 
Summer came on with its perpetual sun, Christmas 
Day passed, New Year’s Day 1899, passed, but the ice 
remained unchanged. The particular floe in the centre 
of which the Belgica was frozen was about four miles 
in diameter, and unless it broke up speedily the awful 
prospect of another winter would have to be faced. All 
hands were set to work to blast and saw a passage for 
the ship to the lane at the edge of the floe, but this was 
a serious matter with ice ten feet thick. The food supply 
was running low, and, willing or unwilling, the workers 
had to support their strength on penguin and seal meat ; 
