Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/339

Rh opportunity, by the assistance of these vehicles, to visit several points of their archipelago; unfortunately, the autumn excursions in these lands continue only about five or six weeks. In the first clays of November, the crew of the Germania saw the sun disappear for three long months beneath the horizon. Then commenced that terrible captivity in the midst of the polar night, and among frightful storms of snow.

The winter of 1869-'70 was made remarkable by a series of tempests from the north, one of which continued for more than a hundred consecutive hours with a velocity of about sixty miles an hour. The thermometer at the same time did not fall beyond 32° (Centigrade) below zero. Besides, even in the most severe temperature, if the chinks in the cabins are carefully stopped up, if the access to the ship is well defended by artificial casings of ice and snow, there will be little suffering from cold. The physical and moral discomfort arises principally from the impossibility, during more than ninety days, of observing the surrounding phenomena, and from the long-continued immobility in the midst of sinister darkness, illuminated alone by those strange celestial fairy scenes called aurora borealis. Outside, the congealed masses of every age and production, being pushed against each other with inimitable noises and grindings that sailors call "the voices of the ice," are welded in huge rafts, or form pyramidical entablatures sculptured with gigantic stalactites, The ship, however, well sheltered in a harbor open on the southern side, and protected on the north by a high rampart of mountains, can brave this frightful shock of the elements; but every thing depends, in case of emergency, on the fortunate choice of a station. The essential point is that the blockade, that assures the safety of navigators, should remain unbroken, and that no ricochet movement should reach the ship; the least rupture of the plain of surrounding ice, the least bar would be fatal; the most fearful peril is the neighborhood of running water.

The polar night, in the latitude where the Germania wintered, ended at the commencement of February; a month after, the sun remained long enough above the horizon to allow great sledge excursions. Then the truly scientific labor of the explorers commenced. This task represents a series of Herculean labors that baffles the imagination. The country not offering the least resource, the travelers were obliged to carry every thing with them; the heavy vehicle also played the rôle of that "ship of the desert," whose loss involves that of the whole caravan. Clothed with heavy furs, the face entirely masked, the tourists harnessed themselves to the sled; supported in some fashion in their hard effort in towage, they struggled against the cutting north wind. The eye, beset by the monotonous reflection of the white immensity, knew neither where to rest nor how to judge of distances; it was every moment the sport of mirages that vanished