Precautions for the Security of the Ships and their Stores—­And for the Health and Comfort of the Crews.—­Establishment of Theatrical Entertainments and Schools.—­Erection of an Observatory and House on Shore.—­State of Health at this Period.—­Partial Disruption of the Ice in the Bay.—­Anchors and Cables taken to the Shore.—­Gradual Increase of Cold, Appearance of the Aurora Borealis on several Occasions, and various other Meteorological Phenomena to the Close of the Year 1821.

Our operations at sea being now at an end for the season, my chief attention was directed to the security of the ships, and to the various internal arrangements which experience suggested as necessary for the preservation of cleanliness, health, and comfort during the winter, as well as for the economical expenditure of provisions, fuel, and other stores.

The situation which circumstances obliged us to put up with for our winter-quarters was by no means as secure as could have been wished.  The bay, though as fine a roadstead as could have been desired if situated in a more temperate climate, was still only a roadstead; and, being entirely open to the south, was exposed to a pressure from the ice in that direction, unless the solid floe now about to be formed round the ships should shortly become sufficient to guard them from external injury.  There was some reason, however, to doubt the efficacy of this protection; for, as the spring-tides approached, the numerous grounded masses around the shores of the bay began to evince symptoms of instability, one or two having fallen over, and others turned round; so that these masses might be looked upon rather as dangerous neighbours, likely to create a premature disruption of the ice, than as the means of security, which, in seas not subject to any considerable rise of tide, they had so often proved to us on former occasions.  To these circumstances was added our uncertainty whether very high tides during the winter might not crack the ice, thereby exposing the ships to the double danger of being “nipped” about their water-line, and of being drifted out of the bay by northerly gales.  That which was, however, perhaps the most to be apprehended, was the possibility of the ships being forced into shoal water, without detaching themselves from the mass of ice cemented to their bends, the weight of which, hanging upon the sides of a ship left aground by the tide, could not but produce very serious injury.

About the time of our arrival in the bay, when the thermometer had fallen nearly to zero, the condensation of vapour upon the beams of the lower deck, and in the cabins near the hatchways, commenced just as it had done at a similar temperature before.  To remedy this evil, no time was lost in lighting a fire in the warming-stove upon the orlop-deck, everything being previously moved from its neighbourhood that was likely to create danger.  The iron tanks in the main hatchway were laid bare on the top, and the