with soft leather. Another effect, with
regard to the use of instruments, began to appear about this time.
Whenever any instrument which had been some time exposed to the
atmosphere, so as to be cooled down to the same temperature, was
suddenly brought below into the cabins, the vapour was instantly
condensed all around it, so as to give the instrument the
appearance of smoking, and the glasses were covered almost
instantly with a thin coating of ice, the removal of which
required great caution, to prevent the risk of injuring them,
until it had gradually thawed, as they acquired the temperature of
the cabin. When a candle was placed in a certain direction from
the instrument with respect to the observer, a number of very
minute _spiculae_ of snow were also seen sparkling around the
instrument, at the distance of two or three inches from it,
occasioned, as we supposed, by the cold atmosphere produced by the
low temperature of the instrument almost instantaneously
congealing into that form the vapour which floated in its
immediate neighbourhood.

The 4th of November being the last day that the sun would,
independently of the effects of refraction, be seen above our
horizon till the 8th of February, an interval of ninety-six days,
it was a matter of considerable regret to us that the weather
about this time was not sufficiently clear to allow us to see and
make observations on the disappearance of that luminary, in order
that something might be attempted towards determining the amount
of the atmospheric refraction at a low temperature. But though we
were not permitted to take a last farewell, for at least three
months, of that cheering orb, "of this great world both eye and
soul," we nevertheless felt that this day constituted an important
and memorable epoch in our voyage. We had some time before set
about the preparations for our winter's amusements; and the
theatre being ready, we opened on the 5th November, with the
representation of _Miss in her Teens_, which afforded to the men
such a fund of amusement as fully to justify the expectations we
had formed of the utility of theatrical entertainments under our
present circumstances, and to determine me to follow them up at
stated periods. I found, indeed, that even the occupation of
fitting up the theatre and taking it to pieces again, which
employed a number of the men for a day or two before and after
each performance, was a matter of no little importance, when the