ion of the year; more,
indeed, than at a later period. This snow produced the greatest
inconvenience; for it soon became so deep as to form high banks around the
house, and to fill all the customary haunts of the men. Still, there were
places that were in a great measure exempt from this white mantle. The
terrace immediately below the hut, which has so often been mentioned, was
one of these bare spots. It was so placed as to be swept by both the east
and the west winds, which generally cleared it of everything like snow, as
fast as it fell; and this more effectually than could be done by a
thousand brooms. The level of rock usually travelled in going to or from
the wreck, was another of these clear places. It was a sort of shelf, too
narrow to admit of the snow's banking, and too much raked by the winds
that commonly accompanied snow, to suffer the last to lodge to any great
depth. Snow there was, with a hard crust, as has already been mentioned;
but it was not snow ten or fifteen feet deep, as occurred in many other
places. There were several points, however, where banks had formed, even
on this ledge, through which the men were compelled to cut their way by
the use of shovels: an occupation that gave them exercise, and contributed
to keep them in health, if it was of no other service. It was found that
the human frame could not endure one-half the toil, in that low state of
the mercury, that it could bear in one a few degrees higher.

Daggett had not, by any means, abandoned his craft, as much as he had
permitted her to be dismantled. Every day or two he had some new expedient
for getting the schooner off in the spring; though all who heard them were
perfectly convinced of their impracticableness. This feeling induced him
to cause his own men to keep open the communication; and scarce a day
passed in which he did not visit the poor unfortunate craft. Nor was the
place without an interest of a very peculiar sort. It has been said that
the fragments of ice, some of which were more than a hundred feet in
diameter, and all of which were eight or ten feet in thickness, had been
left on their edges, inclining in a way to form caverns that extended a
great distance. Now, it so happened, that just around the wreck the cakes
were so distributed as to intercept the first snows which filled the outer
passages, got to be hardened, and covered anew by fresh storms, thus
interposed an effectual barrier to the admission of any more of