air, into a visible form,
exactly resembling a very thick smoke. This apparent smoke settled on
the pannels of the doors and on the bulk-heads, and immediately froze,
by which the latter were covered with a thick coating of ice, which it
was necessary frequently to scrape off.

The extreme severity of the cold, which was sometimes prevalent, may be
imagined from the following fact:--A house, erected on the shore, for
scientific purposes, caught fire; and a servant of Captain Sabine, in
his endeavours to extinguish it, exposed his hands, in the first
instance, to the operation of considerable heat; and he afterwards, for
some time, remained without gloves, in the open air. When taken on board
the ship, his hands presented a strange appearance. They were perfectly
hard, inflexible, and colourless; possessing a degree of translucency,
and exhibiting more the external character of pieces of sculptured
marble, than of animated matter. They were immediately plunged into the
cold bath, where they were continued more than two hours, before their
flexibility could be restored. The abstraction of heat had been so
great, that the water, in contact with the fingers, congealed upon them,
even half an hour after they had been immersed. During the cold
application, the man suffered acute pain, by which he became so faint
and exhausted, that it was requisite to put him to bed. In less than
three hours, an inflammation came on, which extended high up the arm;
and, soon afterwards, each hand, from the wrist downward, was enclosed
in a kind of bladder, containing nearly a pint of viscid serous fluid.
There were, however, three fingers of one hand, and two of the other, in
which this vesication did not form. These fingers continued cold and
insensible, nor could the circulation in them be restored; and,
eventually, the amputation of them became necessary.

The distance at which sounds were heard in the open air, during the
continuance of intense cold, seems almost incredible. Captain Parry says
that his people were distinctly heard, conversing in a common tone of
voice, at the distance of a mile; and that he heard a man singing to
himself, at even a still greater distance. Another circumstance
occurred, scarcely less curious than this: the smell of smoke was so
strong, two miles leeward of the ships, that it impeded the breathing.
This shows to what a distance the smoke was carried horizontally, owing
to the difficulty with which it rise