eezes tight during the observation after
it is brought up, so that the water will not run out of it into the
sample bottles, not to mention all the bother there is getting the
apparatus ready to lower. We are lucky if we do not require to take
the whole thing into the galley every time to thaw it. It is slow work;
the temperatures have sometimes to be read by lantern light. The water
samples are not so reliable, because they freeze in the lifter. But
the thing can be done, and we must just go on doing it. The same
easterly wind is blowing, and we are drifting onward. Our latitude
this evening is about 81 deg. 47' N.

"Thursday, October 18th. I continue taking the temperatures of the
water, rather a cool amusement with the thermometer down to -29 deg.
C. (20.2 deg. Fahr. below zero) and a wind blowing. Your fingers are apt
to get a little stiff and numb when you have to manipulate the wet
or ice-covered metal screws with bare hands and have to read off the
thermometer with a magnifying-glass in order to insure accuracy to
the hundredth part of a degree, and then to bottle the samples of
water, which you have to keep close against your breast, to prevent
the water from freezing. It is a nice business!

"There was a lovely aurora borealis at 8 o'clock this evening. It wound
itself like a fiery serpent in a double coil across the sky. The tail
was about 10 deg. above the horizon in the north. Thence it turned off
with many windings in an easterly direction, then round again, and
westward in the form of an arch from 30 deg. to 40 deg. above the horizon,
sinking down again to the west and rolling itself up into a ball,
from which several branches spread out over the sky. The arches were
in active motion, while pencils of streamers shot out swiftly from
the west towards the east, and the whole serpent kept incessantly
undulating into fresh curves. Gradually it mounted up over the sky
nearly to the zenith, while at the same time the uppermost bend or
arch separated into several fainter undulations, the ball in the
northeast glowed intensely, and brilliant streamers shot upwards to
the zenith from several places in the arches, especially from the ball
and from the bend farthest away in the northeast. The illumination
was now at its highest, the color being principally a strong yellow,
though at some spots it verged towards a yellowish red, while at
other places it was a greenish white. When the upper wave reached the
zenith th