The temperature of the atmosphere, when the fogs prevail, is generally near the freezing point, and is not above three or four degrees higher at midday than at midnight, and sometimes does not vary above a degree or two for several days together. But, in the spring and winter seasons, the temperature is subject to very great and rapid alterations, which are frequently simultaneous with the greatest changes of pressure. This renders the thermometer a valuable appendage in the prognostication of the weather.
The great depression of temperature which takes place in the proximity of ice with a northerly wind, appears equally as considerable to the feelings in low as in high latitudes. As great a degree of cold as ever I noticed in a series of twelve years’ observations (once excepted) was in latitude 71¼°, April 12, 1814, when the mean of three thermometers indicated zero; and, on the same occasion, during an interval of three days, the mean temperature was less than 5°. The wind in the mean time was continually blowing from the north-eastward, generally blowing a gale, but sometimes moderate. On the 25th of April, 1813, in latitude 8°, the thermometer fell to 4°, during a hard gale from the north-east, but on account of the ship being driven away from the ice it soon rose to 10° or 15°. The effect of the ice in reducing the temperature is so considerable, that our proximity to it is often announced by the coldness before it can be seen. In this manner, the difference of a few leagues in position sometimes produces a surprising increase of cold.
The Greenland sailors, being well defended from external cold by a choice selection of warm clothing, generally support the lowest temperature, after a few days’ habitude, without much inconvenience. When, however, its attacks are not gradual, as when a ship, which has attained the edge of the ice, under a southerly gale, is exposed suddenly to a northerly breeze, the change of temperature is so great and rapid, that the most hardy cannot conceal their uneasiness under its first impression. On one occasion, in the year 1814, there was between the time of my leaving the deck at night and arising the following morning an increase in the cold of about 20°. This remarkable change was attended with singular effects. The circulation of the blood was accelerated, a sense of parched dryness was excited in the nose; the mouth, or rather lips, were contracted in all their dimensions, as by a sphincter, and the articulation of many words was rendered difficult and imperfect; indeed, every part of the body was more or less stimulated or disordered by the severity of the cold. The hands, if exposed, would have been frozen in a few minutes, and even the face could not have resisted the effects of a brisk wind, continued for any length of time. A piece of metal, when applied to the tongue, instantly adhered to it, and could not be removed without its retaining a portion of the skin; iron became brittle, and such as was at all of inferior quality might be fractured by a blow; brandy, of English manufacture and wholesale strength, was frozen; quicksilver, by a single process, might have been consolidated; the sea, in some places, was in the act of freezing, and, in others, appeared to smoke, and produced, in the formation of frost-rime, an obscurity greater than that of the thickest fog.
The subtle principle of magnetism seemed to be, in some way or other, influenced by the frost, for the deck compasses became sluggish, or even motionless, while a cabin compass traversed with celerity. The ship became enveloped in ice; the bows, sides, and lower rigging, were loaded; and the rudder, if not repeatedly freed, would, in a short time, have been rendered immovable. A considerable swell at this time prevailing, the smoke in the cabin, with the doors closed, was so intolerable, that we were under the necessity of giving free admission to the external air to prevent it. The consequence was, that, in front of a brisk fire, at the distance of a yard and a half from it, the temperature was 25°; water spilt on the table froze, and, indeed, congelation took place in one situation at the distance of only two feet from the stove. Hoar-frost, also, appeared in the sailors’ bed-cabins, arising from their breath, and was deposited upon their blankets.
Under such a temperature, the whale-fishery could not be prosecuted, for nature could not sustain continued exposure to the pungent force of the wind. With a calm atmosphere, however, the sensible effects of cold are singularly diminished; the cold of zero then becomes equally supportable with the temperature of 10, 15, or even 20 degrees, when impressed by a brisk wind; hence, the sensations produced on the body become a very equivocal criterion for estimating the degree of cold.
The effect of cold in preventing the traversing of compasses, exposed to its influence, has been noticed by some navigators. As a remedy against this inconvenience, Ellis, in his voyage to Hudson’s Bay, suggests the propriety of removing the compasses into a warm place, by which the needles speedily resume their activity. I have found, by experiments, that neither the attractive nor directive power of the magnet suffers diminution by an increase of cold. There appears, however, to be an increase of friction, or the introduction of some unknown principle, which, when the degree of cold is very much increased, occasions a diminution in the mobility of magnetic needles.
Many remarkable effects of cold are related in the journals of Polar navigators. Captain James, when wintering in Hudson’s Bay, latitude 52° north, experienced such cold, that, on the 10th December, many of the sailors had their noses, cheeks, and fingers, frozen as white as paper. Ellis, who wintered in the same region, latitude 57° 30′, found, by the 3rd of November, bottled beer, though wrapped in tow, and placed near a good, constant fire, frozen solid. Many of the sailors had their faces, ears, and toes frozen; iron adhered to their fingers; glasses used in drinking stuck to the mouth, and sometimes removed the skin from the lips or tongue; and a sailor, who inadvertently used his finger for stopping a spirit-bottle in place of a cork, while removing it from the house to his tent, had his finger fast frozen in the bottle, in consequence of which a part of it was obliged to be taken off to prevent mortification.
A Hamburgh whaler, beset by the ice, near Spitzbergen, in the year 1769, was exposed to great danger. The effect of the frost was such, that the seams in the ship’s sides cracked with a noise resembling the report of a pistol. These openings at first rendered the vessel very leaky, but after she got free from the ice, and into a milder climate, they again closed.
In the interesting narrative, by Pelham, of the preservation of eight seamen, who were accidentally left in Spitzbergen, in the year 1630, and wintered there, are some remarks on the effects of cold. The sea of the bay, where they took up their abode, froze over on the 10th of October. After the commencement of the new year, the frost became most intense; it raised blisters in their flesh as if they had been burned with fire, and if they touched iron at such times it would stick to their fingers like bird-lime. Sometimes, when they went out of doors to procure water, they were seized in such a way by the cold, that their flesh felt as sore as if they had been cruelly beaten.
The effects of cold at Disco, as observed by M. Paul Egedé, on the 7th January, 1738, and recorded by David Crantz, in his History of Greenland, are too striking to be omitted. “The ice and hoar-frost,” says Egedé, “reach through the chimney to the stove’s mouth, without being thawed by the fire in the day-time. Over the chimney is an arch of frost, with little holes, through which the smoke discharges itself. The doors and walls are as if they were plastered over with frost, and, which is scarcely credible, beds are often frozen to the bedsteads. The linen is frozen in the drawers, the upper eider-down bed and the pillows are quite stiff with frost an inch thick, from the breath.”