Yet, according to the doctor, there was no danger in exposing one's self to great cold after leaving a heated room; these sudden changes only inconvenience those who are in a perspiration; the doctor quoted examples in support of his opinion, but his lessons were for the most part thrown away.
As for John Hatteras, he did not seem to mind the inclement cold. He walked to and fro silently, never faster or slower. Did not the cold affect his powerful frame? Did he possess to a very great degree the principle of natural heat which he wanted his men to possess? Was he so bound up in his meditations that he was indifferent to outside impressions? His men saw him with great astonishment braving a temperature of -24°; he would leave the ship for hours, and come back without appearing to suffer from the cold.
"He's a singular man," said the doctor to Johnson; "he astonishes me! He carries a glowing furnace within him! He is one of the strongest natures I ever saw!"
"The fact is," answered Johnson, "he goes and comes and circulates in the open air, without dressing any more thickly than in the month of June."
"O, it doesn't make much difference what one wears!" answered the doctor; "what is the use of dressing warmly if one can't produce heat within himself? It's like trying to heat ice by wrapping it up in wool! But Hatteras doesn't need it; he's built that way, and I should not be surprised if his side was as warm as the neighborhood of a glowing coal."
Johnson, who was charged with clearing away the water-hole every morning, noticed that the ice was ten feet thick.
Almost every night the doctor could observe the magnificent auroras; from four o'clock till eight of the evening, the sky in the north was slightly lighted up; then this took a regular shape, with a rim of light yellow, the ends of which seemed to touch the field of ice. Gradually the brilliancy arose in the heavens, following the magnetic meridian, and appeared striped with black bands; jets of luminosity shot with varying brightness here and there; when it reached the zenith it was often composed of several arcs bathed in waves of red, yellow, or green light. It was a dazzling sight. Soon the different curves met in a single point, and formed crowns of celestial richness. Finally the arcs all crowded together, the splendid aurora grew dim, the intense colors faded away into pale, vague, uncertain tints, and this wonderful phenomenon vanished gradually, insensibly, in the dark clouds of the south.
| "Almost every night the doctor could observe the magnificent auroras." |
It is difficult to realize the wonderful, magical beauty of such a spectacle in high latitudes, less than eight degrees from the pole; the auroras which are seen in the temperate zone give no idea of it; it seems as if Providence wished to reserve the greatest wonders for these regions.