112 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
were seen shooting from its upper side, towards the zenith. The magnetic 
needle was not sensibly affected by this phenomenon. 
Between two and three P.M. on the 21st, the weather being still remark- 
ably clear and fine, and the sun near the horizon, a parhelion strongly pris- 
matic was seen on each side of it, at the distance of 23°, resembling the legs 
of a rainbow resting upon the land. 
On the 26th, the sun afforded us sufficient light for writing and reading in 
my cabin, the stern-windows exactly facing the south, from half-past nine 
till half-past two ; for the rest of the four-and-twenty hours we lived, of 
course, by candle-light. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the sky to the 
south-east and south-west at sun-rise and sun-set about this period: near the 
horizon there was generally a rich bluish purple, and a bright arch of deep 
red above, the one mingling imperceptibly with the other. The weather 
about this time was remarkably mild, the mercury in the thermometer having 
stood at or above zero for more than forty-eight hours. By a register of the 
temperature of the atmosphere, which was kept by Captain Sabine at the ob- 
servatory, it was found that the thermometer, invariably, stood at least from 
2° to 5°, and even on one or two occasions as much as 7° higher on the outside 
of the ships, than it did on shore, owing probably to a warm atmosphere, 
created round the former by the constant fires kept up on board. 
On the 29th the weather was calm and clear, and we remarked, for the first 
time, that the smoke from the funnels scarcely rose at all, but skimmed nearly 
horizontally along the housing, the thermometer having got down to — 24°*, 
and the mercury in the barometer standing at 29.70 inches. It now became 
rather a painful experiment to touch any metallic substance in the open air 
with the naked hand; the feeling produced by it exactly resembling that oc- 
casioned by the opposite extreme of intense heat, and taking off the skin 
from the part affected. We found it necessary, therefore, to use great caution 
in handling our sextants and other instruments, particularly the eye-pieces of 
the telescopes, which, if suffered to touch the face, occasioned an intense 
burning pain ; but this was easily remedied by covering them over with soft 
leather. Another effect, with regard to the use of instruments, began to ap- 
pear about this time. Whenever any instrument, which had been some time 
, # By a Meteorological Journal in my possession, kept at York Fort, Hudson’s Bay, in 
the year 1795, it appears that this phenomenon did not occur till the thermometer indi- 
cated a temperature of ab o ut 36°. The height of the barometer is not mentioned. 
