610 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
whether, in those cases, where the bounds of the former were 
overstepped, they were not authorised to refuse their unlimited 
adherence to the latter. Some idea may be formed of the extreme 
cold, to which the men were exposed in this useless task, by the 
following scale of the weather for the month of January 1832, 
when it will be seen that the frost was at some periods seventy- 
nine degrees below the freezing point. 
Lowest 
Highest 
jg 
Lowest ] 
Highest 
Lowe st 
Highest 
Jan. 
Below 
Above 
Jan. 
Below 
Above 
Jan. 
Below 
Above 
1 
36 
26 
12 
16 
12 
23 
32 
28 
2 
38 
25 
13 
25 
12 
24 
32 
21 
3 
35 
22 
14 
30 
25 \ 
25 
21 
17 
4 
40 
36 
15 
30 
27 
26 
28 
18 
5 
40 
36 
16 
30 2 
18 
27 
25 
18 
6 
47 
44 
17 
15 
8 
28 
26 
23 
7 
46 
331 
18 
13 
8 
29 
30 
22 
8 
441 
34 
19 
26 
14 
30 
30 
20 
9 
47 
42 
20 
27 
10 
31 
35 
24 
10 
45 
38 
21 
28 
22 
11 
38 
15 
22 
36* 
27 
* g 
*4 
SB 
, a crc 
y n» 
< o 
The men were employed at this excavation, for nearly 10 
weeks, when the discovery was at last made by Capt. Ross, that 
they had been spending their strength and labor in vain: or 
in other words, that he had employed them on an undertaking 
which was not to be accomplished by human strength or exert¬ 
ion. Sooner would his men have been able to make an exca¬ 
vation in the layers of whinstone of the Highlands of Scotland, 
than they could have succeeded in making one in the iron- 
bound ground, on which they had been picking away for the 
last two months. The pickaxes and chisels were all broken 
in the attempt; but so determined was Capt. Ross, that his 
