did get up a
fancy ball, and enjoyed it very much.

A fire on board ship varied these more interesting proceedings. It
occurred while an experiment was being made to kill rats with carbonic
acid gas. The chief immediate effects were to nearly suffocate Doctor
Kane and three others, a considerable fire, and some discomfort. Then
some dogs went mad in consequence of the depression induced by darkness
and the intense cold. The explorers encountered many dangers in their
excursions, also in falling into crevasses, etcetera. Some dogs died
owing to want of sunlight.

Never had any explorers wintered in such high latitudes before,
excepting perhaps in Spitzbergen. We cannot picture to ourselves the
intense Egyptian darkness which prevails in such places as Kane and his
companions wintered. The thermometer was more than 100 degrees _below
freezing_ point. This was in February, 1854, and the "madness" of the
dogs, though not harmful to their masters, was evidently attributable to
the terrible cold, which affected the air passages, and to the continued
absence of light.

At length Doctor Kane went with a selected party to meet the sun. He
set off to find the light for which all were perishing. The sun was
sighted, and the news was quickly followed by the orb, which revived the
half-frozen crew and the remaining dogs, of which only six were alive,
the rest had died mad--"mentally" afflicted--not with "hydrophobia," but
with "brain" disease. As for the effect on the men, we may quote Doctor
Kane, who says, "An Arctic night and an Arctic day age a man more
harshly than a year anywhere else in all this weary world."

Doctor Kane had made preparations for his sledge expedition to the
north, and a small party was sent ahead on the 19th of March to
establish a depot of stores. But by the 31st of the month three men
returned, swollen, haggard, and scarcely able to articulate. Four men
had been left frozen in the ice in a tent, perfectly disabled. Even the
direction in which they lay was uncertain, but Kane and nine men started
to the rescue. They nearly relinquished the search in sheer despair
until some footprints were discovered which gave them the clue. They
reached the tent after a continued search of twenty-one hours.

After a brief rest--some sleeping in the small tent by turns, while the
rest walked about outside to keep themselves from freezing--they set out
on their homeward journey, but quickly became awa