OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
117 
S.W. b. S., and shooting pencils of rays upwards at an angle of about 45° 1819. 
with the horizon. These rays, however, were not stationary as to their posi- 
tion, but were occasionally extended and contracted. From behind these, as 
it appeared to us, flashes of white light were repeatedly seen, which some- 
times streamed across to the opposite horizon, some passing through the 
zenith, others at a considerable distance on each side of it. This phenomenon 
continued to display itself brilliantly for half an hour, and then became gra- 
dually fainter till it disappeared, about four o’clock. The sun, at the time of 
the first appearance of this meteor, was on nearly the same bearing, and about 
5° below the horizon.” 
The temperature of the atmosphere having, about this time, become con- Thur. 18. 
siderably lower than before, the cracking of the timbers was very frequent 
and loud for a time ; but generally ceased altogether in an hour or two after 
this fall had taken place in the thermometer, and did not occur again at the 
same temperature during the winter. The wind blowing fresh from the 
northward, with a heavy snow-drift, made the ship very cold below ; so that 
the breath and other vapour accumulated during the night in the bed-places 
and upon the beams, and then immediately froze ; hence it often occupied all 
hands for two or three hours during the day to scrape the ice away, in order 
to prevent the bedding from becoming wet by the increase of temperature 
occasioned by the fires. It was therefore found necessary to keep some of 
the fires in between decks at night, when the thermometer was below —15° 
or —20° in the open air, especially when the wind was high. To assist in 
keeping the lower decks warm, as well as to retard, in some slight degree, 
the formation of ice immediately in contact with the ships’ bends, we banked 
the snow up against their sides, as high as the main-chains ; and canvass 
screens were nailed round all the hatchways on the lower deck. 
The stars of the second magnitude in Ursa Major were just perceptible to 
the naked eye a little after noon this day, and the Aurora Borealis appeared 
faintly in the south-west at night. About this time our medical gentlemen 
began to remark the extreme difficulty with which sores of every kind healed ; 
a circumstance that rendered it the more necessary to be cautious in exposing 
the men to frost-bites, lest the long inactivity and want of exercise during the 
cure of sores in other respects trifling, should produce serious effects upon the 
general health of the patients. 
From midnight on the 20th, till two o’clock on the following morning, the Sun. 21. 
thermometer rose from —46° to — 40|°, and at half-past three a gale came 
