On the 19th, Lockwood made a dog-sledge trip with Brainard and the Esquimaux Frederick to Depot “B,” to look for a good place to cross the straits. Found that the snow had drifted so as to form a continuous inclined plane from the bluffs far outside the snow-house and tent, thus almost concealing them. They recognized the spot only by seeing the stovepipe jutting above the snow. Knowing how the mouth of the tunnel lay from this point, they dug through the hard, compact snow, cleared out the tunnel, and soon found themselves within the snow-house. The little stove was swallowed up in a cone of snow reaching from roof to floor. This had drifted through a small aperture where the pipe pierced the roof. The fire going out after they turned in, the room became extremely damp and chilly. However, they made up for the discomforts of the night by a rousing fire in the morning, over which they got up a grand breakfast of musk-ox steak, beans, coffee, and hard-tack. They next sent the team with Frederick down to St. Patrick’s Bay for a bag of coal, while Lockwood and Brainard walked over the straits toward Polaris Promontory. Going out some four or five miles over ice of varied nature, some exceedingly broken and hummocky and some quite level, they returned, satisfied that the time for crossing over was not yet. Frederick had, in the mean time, returned, mended up the hole in the roof, made a good fire, and prepared a warm meal. They again started out to test the important passage, taking a route farther north. There the rubble-ice reached only two hundred yards from the shore, beyond which, as far as they walked and could see, smooth ice extended. They returned, satisfied that this was the place to attempt the passage when the time should arrive for their contemplated exploration farther north. They made the trip over the foot-ice to the station (twenty miles) in four hours, thus proving the fine condition of the sledge and dogs for traveling, and the eagerness of the dogs to rejoin their companions and pups. All the way, they had before them to the southward a rich glow on the horizon like the sunrise of a fine morning at home. They found the men celebrating the 22d of February by match-games of various kinds, and, after listening to an appropriate speech on the Father of his Country, enjoyed a good dinner. X. “THE ARCTIC MOON.”