Every man besides had served out to him daily 1-1/4 lb. dried bread or flour (2/3 wheat and 1/3 rye), 3 ort tobacco and 2 cubic inches vinegar; and weekly 1 lb. wheat-flour, 30 ort butter, 21 ort salt, 7 ort mustard, 3 ort pepper, and two cubic inches vinegar.
Besides what is included in the above list, "multegröt" (preserved cloudberries), mixed with rum, was served out twice a week from the 15th February to the 1st April. I would willingly have had a larger quantity of this, according to northern experience, excellent antidote to scurvy, but as the cloudberry harvest completely failed in 1877, I could not, at any price, procure for the Expedition the quantity that was required. There was purchased in Finland instead, a large quantity of cranberry-juice, which was regularly served out to the crew and much liked by them. We carried with us besides a pair of living swine, which were slaughtered for the Christmas festivities.[254] All the men at that time had an opportunity of eating fresh pork twice a week, an invaluable interruption to the monotonous preserved provisions, which in its proportion conduced, during this festival, to which we inhabitants of the North are attached by so many memories, to enliven and cheer us.
The produce of hunting was confined during the course of the winter to some ptarmigan and hares, and thus did not yield any contribution worth mentioning to the provisioning of the vessel. On the other hand, I was able by barter with the natives to procure fish in considerable abundance, so that at certain seasons the quantity was sufficient to allow of fresh fish being served out once a week. The kind of fish which was principally obtained during the winter, a sort of cod with greyish-green vertebræ, could however at first only be served in the gun-room, because the crew, on account of the colour of its bones, for a long time had an invincible dislike to it. On many of the ground-ices in the neighbourhood of the vessel there were fresh-water collections of considerable depth, which indeed were already hard frozen on the surface, but long yielded us splendid water for drinking and washing. After the 14th of December, when all the smaller fresh-water collections were almost frozen to the bottom, and salt-water had made its way into the largest ones and those on which we most depended, it became necessary to procure water by melting ice.
The meteorological observations were made every fourth hour up to the 1st November; after that to the 1st April every hour; after that again six times in the twenty-four hours. From the 27th November to the 1st April the thermometers were set up on land at the magnetical observatory; before and after that time in the immediate neighbourhood of the vessel. During winter the charge of the meteorological observations was intrusted to Dr. Stuxberg, who at that season, when all around us was covered with ice, was compelled to let his own zoological researches rest.
The state of the weather of course had a very sensible influence on our daily life, and formed the touchstone by which our equipment was tested. Space does not permit me to give in this work the detailed results of the meteorological observations. I shall therefore only state the following facts. The greatest cold which was observed during the different months was in
October the 24th—20°.8 March the 29th—39°'8
November the 30th—27°.2 April the 15th—38°.0
December the 23rd—37°.1 May the 3rd—26°.8
January the 25th—45°.7 June the 3rd—14°.3