STORING PROVISIONS. 
105 
frozen in: it was our neighbor while we remained in 
Rensselaer Harbor. The rocky islets around us were 
fringed with hummocks; and, as the tide fell, their sides 
were coated with opaque crystals of bright white. The 
birds had gone. The sea-swallows, which abounded 
when we first reached here, and even the young burgo¬ 
masters that lingered after them, had all taken their 
departure for the south. Except the snow-birds, these 
are the last to migrate of all the Arctic birds. 
“September 10, Saturday.—We have plenty of re¬ 
sponsible work before us. The long ‘night in which 
no man can work’ is close at hand: in another month 
we shall lose the sun. Astronomically, he should dis¬ 
appear on the 24th of October if our horizon were free; 
but it is obstructed by a mountain ridge, and, making 
all allowance for refraction, we cannot count on seeing 
him after the 10th. 
“First and foremost, we have to unstow the hold, 
and deposit its contents in the storehouse on Butler 
Island. Brooks and a party are now briskly engaged 
in this double labor, running loaded boats along a canal 
that has to be recut every morning. 
“Next comes the catering for winter diet. We have 
little or no game as yet in Smith’s Sound; and, though 
the traces of deer that we have observed may be fol¬ 
lowed by the animals themselves, I cannot calculate 
upon them as a resource. I am without the her¬ 
metically-sealed meats of our last voyage; and the use 
of salt meat in circumstances like ours is never safe. 
A fresh-water pond, which fortunately remains open at 
