Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/240

226 Sailing up past Capes North and Ray, and thence through the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Strait of Belle Isle, the Neptune coasted along the Labrador shore until reaching Nain on the 29th, where a pause was made in the hopes of securing fur clothing for those who were to remain out all winter, and also an interpreter. Failing in both objects, but experiencing much kindness at the hands of the Moravian missionaries, one of whose principal stations Nain is, the expedition continued on to Nachvak, arriving there on the 1st of August. On the way icebergs were encountered in great numbers, requiring constant vigilance on board the steamship. At Nachvak, which is a post of the Hudson Bay Company, both the fur clothing and the interpreter were readily obtained. The company's agent informed Lieutenant Gordon that the ice takes over the harbor of Nachvak, which is in latitude 59° 10' north, and longitude 63° 30' west, about the middle of November in each year, and, curious to note, has, for the last seven years, at all events broken up within a day of the 26th of June in each year. Off Cape Chudleigh, which is just at the mouth of Hudson Strait, the Neptune was enveloped in a dense fog, which compelled her to lay-to from Sunday until Tuesday morning. Tuesday, however, dawned bright and clear, and, pushing in through Grey Strait, a fine harbor was found that afternoon on the northwestern shore of the cape, at the entrance to Ungava Bay. On the shore of this harbor a site was selected for observing station No. 1, and the place named Port Bur well, in compliment to the observer appointed to that station. As the best and briefest method of indicating the precise nature of the duties devolving upon these observers who were to spend a long and dreary winter at their posts, we herewith transcribe the instructions with which each was furnished:

—As the primary object of the whole expedition is to ascertain for what period of the year the strait is navigable, all attention is to be paid to the formation, breaking up, and movements of the ice.

Each station is supplied with a sun-dial and time-piece, and the clock is to be tested each day when there is sunshine about noon. A table of corrections is supplied for the reduction of apparent time to local mean time; to this the difference of time will be applied to 75th meridian, all entries being made in the time of this meridian, and observations will be taken regularly at the following times throughout the year, viz., 3h. 08 m., 7 h. 08 m., 11 h. 08 m., and

Each morning the sums and means of the observations taken on the previous day will be taken out and checked over; they will then be entered in the abstract-books supplied for the purpose.

After each observation during daylight the observer on duty will take the telescope and carefully examine the strait, writing down at