428 
METEORIC SHOWER. 
result. "We have burnt from G A. M. to 10 p. m. but 
seventy-five pounds, and will finish the twenty-four 
hours with fifteen pounds more. It has been a mild 
day, the thermometer keeping some tenths above 13° 
below zero; but then we have maintained a tempera¬ 
ture inside of 55° above. With our old contrivances we 
could never get higher than 47°, and that without any 
certainty, though it cost us a hundred and fifty-four 
pounds a day. A vast increase of comfort, and still 
greater saving of fuel. This last is a most important 
consideration. Not a stick of wood comes below with¬ 
out my/eyes following it through the scales to the 
wood-stack. I weigh it to the very ounce. 
“ The tide-register, with its new wheel-and-axle ar¬ 
rangements, has given us out-door work for the day. 
Inside, after rigging the stove, we have been busy 
chopping wood. The ice is already three feet thick 
at our tide-hole. 
“November 15, Wednesday.—The last forty-eight 
hours should have given us the annual meteoric shower. 
We were fully prepared to observe it; but it would not 
come off. It would have been a godsend variety. In 
eight hours that I helped to watch, from nine of last 
night until five this morning, there were only fifty-one 
shooting stars. I have seen as many between the same 
hours in December and February of last winter. 
“Our traps have been empty for ten days past: but 
for the pittance of excitement which the visit to them 
gives, we might as well be without them. 
“The men are getting nervous and depressed. Me- 
