166 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. ground, allowing the sun’s rays to penetrate to the earth, a sufficient degree 
of heat had been radiated partially to thaw the snow, forming it into a thin 
transparent cake, like a plate of glass. Indeed, the cloudless sky, and the 
uniformly white surface of sea and land which characterize the climate of 
Melville Island at this period, are ill calculated to impart warmth to the 
atmosphere ; and it was not till the clouds became gradually more dense 
and frequent, and the earth had, by slow degrees, become uncovered in parts, 
so as to admit the absorption and radiation of heat, that the dissolution of the 
snow could go on to any considerable extent. 
Sun. 16. In the afternoon of the 1 6th, the weather being clear and nearly calm, 
Mr. Hooper and myself observed a colouring in some light fleecy clouds, which 
formed one of the most beautiful phenomena that I had ever seen. These clouds, 
which were small and white, and almost the only ones in the heavens, assumed, 
as they approached and passed under the sun, the most soft and exquisite 
tints of light lake, bluish green, and yellow about their edges, that can pos- 
sibly be imagined. These tints appeared only when the clouds were within 
15° or 20° of the sun, were brightest as they passed under it, which they did 
as close as 2°, and began to be again indistinct at 10° from it. Some of the 
clouds remained coloured in this way for upwards of a quarter of an hour ; 
there did not seem to be any regular arrangement of tints, as in the prismatic 
spectrum, but the lake was always next the sun. 
It was a source of extreme satisfaction to me to find that the health of both 
ships’ companies were daily improving as the season advanced ; so that by 
the middle of April, the Griper’s sick list was reduced to four, all of whom 
were convalescent ; and on board the Hecla, Mr. Edwards had but a single 
patient, William Scott, boatswain’s-mate, who first complained of pneumonia 
about this time, and whose case subsequently assumed a more dangerous 
character. 
On the 1 9th and 20th, the thermometer kept up nearly to zero, in conse- 
quence of the wind blowing from the E.S.E., and continual snow, of which 
Frid. 21. we remarked, when walking on shore on the 2Ist, that as much had fallen in 
the last two days as during the whole of the winter. The spiculae were also 
much less minute than before, though the snow could not as yet be said to fall 
in flakes. 
Tiies. 25. The wind, which had blown fresh from the eastward for several hours, 
moderated at half past two A.M. on the 25th, and the thermometer fell from 
+ 4° to - 1° at four o’clock. As the wind freshened again, the thermometer 
