ing the homeward route to bring down several brace of ptarmigan.
Just about an hour before they reached the ship, a phenomenon occurred, which filled the Doctor with amazement.
It was a regular shower of shooting-stars. They fell in myriads, completely eclipsing the light of the moon. This grand meteoric display lasted several hours. A similar shower was observed in Greenland by the Moravian Brethren in 1799. The Doctor sat up all night to gaze at this wonderful phenomenon, which continued till seven o'clock the next morning.
CHAPTER XXV
THE LAST BIT OF COAL
The bears appeared absolutely impregnable; not one was taken. Indeed, nothing was killed except a few seals, and then the wind changed and the snow falls became so violent that it was impossible to leave the ship.
On the 15th of November the thermometer fell to 24° below zero. This was the lowest temperature they had hitherto experienced, yet with a calm atmosphere the cold would have been bearable, but the stormy wind that blew seemed to fill the air with sharp lancets.
Even had it been possible to venture out, the least exercise would soon have made a man pant for breath. Not a fourth part of the usual work could be done by the crew, and woe to the hapless individual who was incautious enough to touch anything made of iron. He felt as if he had been suddenly burnt, and the skin was torn off his hand, and remained sticking to the article he had so imprudently grasped.
The only relief to the close confinement was a daily walk of two hours on the covered-in deck, and the permission to smoke, which was not allowed down below.
The stoves had to be carefully attended to, for if the fires got the least low, the walls became covered with ice, and not only the walls, but every peg, and nail, and inch of metal.
The instantaneousness of this phenomenon astonished the Doctor. The breath of the men seemed to condense in a second, and leap, as it were, from fluid to solid, falling in snow all round them. Only a few feet away from the fire
