Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/246



The hunters continue to chase the reindeer and foxes in the moonlight,—more, however, from habit and for exercise than from any encouragement they find in success; for, even when the moon shines, they can shoot only at random. The work at the observatory goes on, and when the magnetic "term day" comes round we clamber over the ice-foot every hour, and it marks an event. The occultations of Jupiter's satellites are carefully observed through the telescope, that our chronometers may not go astray; the tide continues to rise and fall, regardless of the vast load of ice that it lifts, and indifferent as to the fact that it is watched. Dodge keeps up his ice-measurements, and finds that the crystal table has got down to our keel (6-1/2 feet), so that we are resting in a perfect cradle. That the sailors may have something to do, I have given them an hour's task each day sewing up canvas bags for the spring journeys. From the officers I continue to have the same daily reports; the newspaper comes out regularly, and continues to afford amusement; the librarian hands out the books every morning, and they are well read; the officers and the men have no new means of entertainment, and usually fill up the last of the waking hours (I cannot say the evening, where there is nothing else but night) with cards and pipes. I go into the cabin oftener than I used to; but I do not neglect my chess with Knorr, and, until Sonntag left us, I filled up a portion of every evening in converse with him, and, for the lack of any thing new, we talked over and over again of our summer plans, and calculated to a nicety the measure of our labor, and the share which each would take of the work laid out.

And thus we jog on toward the spring; but each