than half a year together.  Whichever way the eye is turned, it meets a picture calculated to impress upon the mind an idea of inanimate stillness, of that motionless torpor with which our feelings have nothing congenial; of anything, in short, but life.  In the very silence there is a deadness with which a human spectator appears out of keeping.  The presence of man seems an intrusion on the dreary solitude of this wintry desert, which even its native animals have for a while forsaken.

I am persuaded, therefore, that I shall be excused in sparing the dulness of another winter’s diary, and confining myself exclusively to those facts which appear to possess any scientific interest, to the few incidents which did diversify our confinement, and to such remarks as may contribute to the health and comfort of any future sojourners in these dreary regions.

It may well be supposed that, in this climate, the principal desideratum which art is called upon to furnish for the promotion of health, is warmth, as well in the external air as in the inhabited apartments.  Exposure to a cold atmosphere, when the body is well clothed, produces no bad effect whatever beyond a frostbitten cheek, nose, or finger.  As for any injury to healthy lungs from the breathing of cold air, or from sudden changes from this into a warm atmosphere, or vice versa, it may with much confidence be asserted that, with due attention to external clothing, there is nothing in this respect to be apprehended.  This inference, at least, would appear legitimate, from the fact that our crews, consisting of one hundred and twenty persons, have for four winters been constantly undergoing, for months together, a change of from eighty to a hundred degrees of temperature, in the space of time required for opening two doors (perhaps less than half a minute), without incurring any pulmonary complaints at all.

In speaking of the external clothing sufficient for health in this climate, it must be confessed that, in severe exposure, quite a load of woollen clothes, even of the best quality, is insufficient to retain a comfortable degree of warmth; a strong breeze carrying it off so rapidly, that the sensation is that of the cold piercing through the body.  A jacket made very long, like those called by seamen “pea-jackets,” and lined with fur throughout, would be more effectual than twice the weight of woollen clothes, and is, indeed, almost weather-proof.  For the prevention of lumbago, to which our seamen are especially liable, from their well-known habit of leaving their loins imperfectly clothed, every man should be strictly obliged to wear, under his outer clothes, a canvass belt a foot broad, lined with flannel, and having straps to go over the shoulder.[006]