1.68 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. This evening, and during the whole night, we experienced, for the first time 
this season, a fog, such as occurs in more temperate climates, and which the 
sun dispersed on the following morning ; the same thing again occurred the 
Frid. 28. next day. 
Sat. 29. At half-past two P.M. on the 29th, Mr. Edwards and myself observed the 
clouds coloured in the same beautiful and delicate manner as on the 16th ; 
except that the tints were now not so vivid, the clouds passing farther from 
the sun. A parhelion was also seen on each side of the sun horizontally ; 
both were faint and quite white. 
I have before mentioned the circumstance of our lower rigging having been 
very slack during the severity of the winter, and again become tight as the 
warmer weather came on. Even now this had taken place so effectually, that 
the rigging was full as tight as when we left the river Thames twelve 
months before. I have been the more particular in mentioning this fact, 
because the circumstance of its becoming slack by the cold is at variance with 
the accounts of other navigators*. 
For the last three or four days of April, the snow on the black cloth 
of our housing had begun to thaw a little during a few hours in the 
middle of the day, and on the 30th so rapid a change took place in the 
temperature of the atmosphere, that the thermometer stood at the freezing, 
or as it may more properly be termed in this climate, the thawing point, 
being the first time that such an event had occurred for nearly eight months, 
or since the 9th of the preceding September. This temperature was, to 
our feelings, so much like that of summer, that I was under the necessity of 
using my authority to prevent the men from making such an alteration in their 
clothing as might have been attended with very dangerous consequences. By 
the annexed Abstract of the Hecla’s Meteorological Journal for April, it will 
be seen how rapid was the change of temperature during this month, the ther- 
mometer having ranged from - 32° to 4- 32° in the course of twenty days. 
There was, at this period, more snow upon the ground than at any other time 
of the year, the average depth on the lower parts of the land being four or 
five inches, but much less upon the hills ; while in the ravines a very large 
* “ On the morning of the 5th, (November,) it was discovered that almost all the shrouds 
on the starboard side of the ship were broken, which happened from contraction and 
tenseness, caused by frost.” — Account of Bering’s Voyage, A. D. 1741, Burney’s North- 
Eastern Voyages of Discovery, p. 171. 
