MERCURY FREEZES. 137 like SO many glowing mirrors. The rays of ligbt, striking on the edges or surfaces of the ice, became bent and diffracted j the angles and varying inclinations on which they fell fretting them into fringes of colour, and reflecting them back with changed and heightened beauty. It was like a fairy scene in which ice and snow combined to add eclat to a imlee of rays in which luminous waves rushed upon each other, breaking into coloured ripples. But the excessive cold soon drove the admiring spectators back to their warm dwelling, and many a nose paid dearly for the feast enjoyed by the eyes. During the following days the cold became doubly severe. The 'mercurial thermometer was of course no longer of any use for mark- ing degrees, and an alcohol thermometer had to be used. On the night of the 28th to the 29th December the column fell to 32° below zero. ^ , The stoves were piled up with fuel, but the temperature in the house could not be maintained above 20" degrees. The bed- rooms were exceedingly cold, and ten feet from the stove, in the large room, its heat could not be felt at all. The little baby had the warmest corner, and its cradle was rocked in turn by those who came to the fire. 0})ening doors or windows was strictly forbidden, as the vapour in the rooms would immediately have been converted into snow, and in the passage the breathing of the inmates already produced that result. Every now and then dull reports were heard, which startled those unaccustomed to living in such high latitudes. They were caused by the cracking of the trunks of trees, of which the walls were composed, under the influence of the intense cold. The stock of rum and gin stowed away in the garret had to be brought down into the sitting-room, as the alcohol was freezing and sinking to the bottom of the bottles. The spruce-beer made from a decoction of young fir-branchlets burst the barrels in which it wa^ kept as it froze, whilst all solid bodies resisted the introduction of heat as if they were petrified. Wood burnt very slowly, and Hobson was obliged to sacrifice some of the walrus-oil to quicken its com- bustion. Fortunately the chimneys drew well, so that there was no disagreeable smell inside, although for a long distance outside the air was impregnated with the fetid odour of the smoke from Fort Hope, which a casual observer might therefore have pronounced an unhealthy building. One symptonj we must notice was the great thirst from which
