OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
141 
lated that the Hecla would require, in the spring, nearly seventy tons, besides 1820. 
twenty tons of additional water, to make up for the loss of weight by the 
expenditure of provisions and stores. These stones were brought down on 
sledges about half a mile to the beach, where they were broken into a con- 
venient size for stowage, and then weighed in scales, erected on the beach 
for the purpose ; thus affording to the men a considerable quantity of bodily 
exercise, whenever the weather would permit them to be so employed. 
As we were now, however, approaching the coldest part of the season, it 
became more essential than ever to use the utmost caution in allowing the 
men to remain for any length of time in the open air, on account of the injury 
to their general health, which was likely to result from the inactivity requisite 
to the cure of some of the most trifling frost-bites. Mr. Edwards has favoured 
me with the following brief account of such cases of this nature as occurred 
on board the Hecla : — “ The majority of the men who came into the sick-list, 
in consequence of frost-injuries during the severity of the winter, suffered 
mostly in their feet, and especially in their great toes ; and, although none 
of them were so unfortunate as to lose a toe, yet few cures were effected 
without the loss of the nail and cuticle, in which the vital power was inva 
riably destroyed. The exfoliation of these dead parts was always slow, and 
often attended with small ulcerations at the extremity of the toe. The com- 
paratively languid action which is always going on in the feet, owing to their 
dependent situation, and their remoteness from the centre of circulation, is 
much increased by the rigour of so severe a climate, and also by the state of 
inactivity in which it is necessary to keep the patient ; so that these trifling 
sores were found to heal with extreme difficulty. Occasional negligence and 
irregularities in the patients also served at times to protract the cure. It may 
further be observed, that the ulcerations alluded to seldom took place, even 
in some of the more severe cases, when circumstances would allow of timely 
attention being paid to them.” 
On the 8th, at noon, and for half an hour after, an appearance presented Tues. 8. 
itself in the heavens, which we had not before observed. A thin fleecy 
cloud of a pale-red colour, and shaped like part of an arch, commenced 
pretty strongly from the top of the land in the N.W., and ran more and more 
faintly to N.b.W., beyond which it could no longer be traced : it was here 
fifteen degrees above the northern horizon. On looking for a continuation of it 
in the opposite quarter of the heavens, we perceived a larger portion of another 
and fainter arch, of pale, red, or orange, commencing at the horizon in the 
