312 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN . 
times three, journeys with, our loads. We now 
found it absolutely necessary to lighten the boats 
as much as possible, by putting the bread-bags on 
the sledges, on account of the ‘ runners 9 of the 
boats sinking so much deeper into the snow; but 
our bread ran a great risk of being wetted by this 
plan. 
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“ We had seen, in the course of our last journey, a 
few rotges, a loom, an ivory-gull, a mallemucke, and a 
tern [Sterna arctica). 
“ We here observed the dip of the magnetic needle 
to be 82° 4'*7, and the variation to be 13° 16' 
westerly; the latitude being 81° 45' 15", and the 
longitude, by chronometers, 24° 23' East, by which 
we found that we had been drifted considerably to 
the eastward. In this situation we tried for soundings 
with four hundred fathoms of line, without reaching 
the bottom; the temperature at that depth, by Sixs 
thermometer, was 30°, that at the surface, at the time, 
being 32-|°, and of the air 34°. 
x x 
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“The rain of the 11th, which was very unusually 
heavy, ceased soon after we had halted, but was 
succeeded by a thick, wet fog, which obliged us, when 
we continued our journey, to put on our travelling 
