The winter passed quietly, the officers making tidal, astronomical, magnetic, and meteorological observations, while the men, engaged in ordinary pursuits, kept in health. Unfortunately fifty-seven, nearly all, of the dogs died, thus depriving Kane of his main reliance for field operations. The extreme cold--the mean temperature for December to March, inclusive, being thirty-two degrees below zero--had reduced the fuel so that the allowance was three buckets a day. Other supplies commenced to show their need or inadequacy; oil for lamps failed, as did fresh meat from game, and unfortunately there was no canned meat, only salted. Despite his loss of dogs Kane decided on laying out new depots, and with the advance of March he watched eagerly the temperature. From the 10th to the 19th the cold averaged seventy-six degrees below the freezing-point. He started his man-sledge on the 20th, under charge of Brooks, first officer, with seven others at the drag-ropes. Unfortunately the equipment was either somewhat defective or some of the party were inexperienced in the methods needful for self-preservation in such extreme cold. Kane gives no details of the causes of the calamity save to say that "a heavy gale from the north-northeast broke upon the party, and the temperature fell to fifty-seven below zero." The first news of the disaster came from Sontag, Ohlsen, and Petersen, who suddenly appeared in the cabin, at midnight of March 31st, swollen, haggard, and hardly able to speak. Kane continues: "They had left their companions in the ice, risking their own lives to bring us the news; Brooks, Baker, Wilson, and Pierre, were all lying frozen and disabled. Where? They could not tell; somewhere among the hummocks to the northeast; it was drifting heavily around them. Irish Tom had stayed to care for the others. It was vain to question them, for they were sinking with fatigue and hunger, and could hardly be rallied enough to tell us the direction."