ro; he left the ship for hours, and came back
without his face betraying the slightest mark of cold.

"He is a strange man," said the doctor to Johnson; "he even astonishes
me. He is one of the most powerful natures I have ever studied in
my life."

"The fact is," answered Johnson, "that he comes and goes in the open
air without clothing himself more warmly than in the month of June."

"Oh! the question of clothes is not of much consequence," replied
the doctor; "it is of no use clothing people who do not produce heat
naturally. It is the same as if we tried to warm a piece of ice by
wrapping it up in a blanket! Hatteras does not want that; he is
constituted so, and I should not be surprised if being by his side
were as good as being beside a stove."

Johnson had the job of clearing the water-hole the next day, and
remarked that the ice was more than ten feet thick. The doctor could
observe magnificent aurora borealis almost every night; from four
till eight p.m. the sky became slightly coloured in the north; then
this colouring took the regular form of a pale yellow border, whose
extremities seemed to buttress on to the ice-field. Little by little
the brilliant zone rose in the sky, following the magnetic meridian,
and appeared striated with blackish bands; jets of some luminous
matter, augmenting and diminishing, shot out lengthways; the meteor,
arrived at its zenith, was often composed of several bows, bathed
in floods of red, yellow, or green light. It was a dazzling spectacle.
Soon the different curves all joined in one point, and formed boreal
crowns of a heavenly richness. At last the bows joined, the splendid
aurora faded, the intense rays melted into pale, vague, undetermined
shades, and the marvellous phenomenon, feeble, and almost
extinguished, fainted insensibly into the dark southern clouds.
Nothing can equal the wonders of such a spectacle under the high
latitudes less than eight degrees from the Pole; the aurora borealis
perceived in temperate regions gives no idea of them--not even a
feeble one; it seems as if Providence wished to reserve its most
astonishing marvels for these climates.

During the duration of the moon several images of her are seen in
the sky, increasing her brilliancy; often simple lunar halos surround
her, and she shines from the centre of her luminous circle with a
splendid intensity.

On the 26th of November there was a high tide, and the water escaped
with violence from the