3. In the last three weeks of November we had complete darkness, the sky clouded over and the weather bad. So dark was it, that our environment, though it was overspread with countless hummocks and ice-cliffs, looked like one black unbroken level. On the 31st of October most of the stars were visible about 3 o’clock in the afternoon; by 4 o’clock actual night prevailed. On the 16th of November large print was barely legible even at noon. On the 18th of the month we were able to read the larger letters on the title-page of Vogt’s Geology at the distance of a foot. At noon, on the 13th of December, not a letter of this same title-page was legible, even in clear weather. On the 5th of November there was a total eclipse of the moon, which then sank below the horizon and did not return till the 29th of that month. Its beams then fell on a large ice-hole, which had formed itself twenty miles to the south of the ship, which made us apprehensive lest our floe should be driven by the north winds in a southerly direction. On the 4th of December the moon reached its highest declination, but, as it waned, it was constantly obscured by bad weather. I had reckoned on the return of moonlight to make an excursion of some days to the mainland. But the fickleness of the weather at the beginning of December compelled me to confine my wanderings to Wilczek Island, which I frequently visited, although with a thermometer at -35° F. I was exposed to frost-bites in the face and hands, whenever I attempted to draw by the light of a lamp, and with only the protection of light woollen gloves.[22]
DEPARTURE OF THE SUN IN THE SECOND WINTER.
4. We observed during this winter, that, on the clearest nights, snow of the finest texture continued to fall, so that we saw the heavenly bodies, as it were, through a veil of fine gauze. In the moonlight this fine snow sparkled faintly, and its presence could only be discovered by a prickling on the skin. The constancy of these downfalls added of course to the depth of the snow under which the Tegetthoff was almost buried; indeed at the beginning of the spring she no longer stood out from the covering of snow, although her fore-part was eleven-and-three-quarter feet, and her after-part four-and-a-half feet, above the ice on which she rested. The air was also often filled with an indescribable quantity of driving snow; and when the wind dropped and permitted it to fall, we were struck with the profound stillness of our environment. The cold constantly increased and penetrated all the parts of the interior of the ship which were not artificially heated,[23] and almost all the fluids, which were not specially protected, were frozen. The various kinds of spirits on board were exposed on the 23rd of November to the cold at -26° F.; at the end of an hour-and-a-half they still remained fluid. When the temperature fell to -31° F., hollands, common gin and maraschino were congealed in two-hours-and-a-half, but rum and brandy remained unchanged. On another occasion a mixture of two parts of pure alcohol to one part of water froze at -47° F., cognac at -53° F. This low temperature had so increased the thickness of the ice, that the basin of open water, which had been sawed through in the previous summer, was covered on the 3rd of January with ice three-and-a-half, and on the 20th with ice six-and-a-half feet thick.
NOON ON DECEMBER 21, 1873.