316 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBEBGEN. 
halted at half-past seven, after being twelve hours on 
the road, having made a N.b.W. course, distance only 
six miles and a quarter, though we had traversed nine 
miles. The thermometer was unusually high in the 
shade, having risen to 37§°; in the sun it stood at 
47°; a blackened bulb raised it to 51^° ; and the same 
thermometer, held against the black painted side of 
the boat, rose to 59^°. This was during a calm : but 
almost the smallest breath of wind immediately re¬ 
duced them all below 40°. We saw, during the last 
journey, a mallemucke and a second Ross gull; and a 
couple of small Hies (to us an event of ridiculous 
importance) were found upon the ice. We here 
observed the variation of the magnetic needle to be 
17° 28' westerly, being in latitude, by observation, 
82° 26' 44" (or two miles to the southward of our 
reckoning), and in longitude, by chronometers, 20° 32' 
13" East. 
At* 4. J/. 
w W w w 
“We were to-day almost unusually fortunate in 
meeting with some open water, one lane of which 
gave us, though by a very crooked course, a mile and 
a half of northing, besides other smaller ones. The 
sea-water, in one of the largest of these lanes, was at 
the temperature of 34°, being almost the only instance 
I remember of such an occurrence in a sea thus loaded 
