X.] 
OBSERVATORY WORK. 
511 
the temperature at — 36°, remain in the observatory for five 
hours in a temperature of —17°, and then return to the vessel, 
commonly against the wind—for it came nearly always from the 
north or north-west—was dismal enough. None of us, however, 
suffered any harm from it. On the contrary, it struck me as 
if this compulsory interruption to our monotonous life on board 
THE OBSERVATORY AT PITLEKAJ. 
(After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) 
and the long-continued stay in the open air had a refreshing 
influence both on body and soul. 
In the neighbourhood of the ice-house the thermometer case 
was erected, and farther on in the winter there were built in the 
surrounding snowdrifts, two other observatories, not however 
of ice, but of snow, in the Greenland snow-building style. Our 
depot of provisions was also placed in the neighbourhood, and 
at a sufficient distance from the magnetical observatory there 
