Immediately after the ships were finally secured, we erected the observatory on shore, and commenced our arrangements for the various observations to which our attention was to be directed during the winter. The interest of these, especially of such as related to magnetism, increased so much as we proceeded, that the neighbourhood of the observatory assumed ere long almost the appearance of a scattered village, the number of detached houses, having various needles set up in them, soon amounting to seven or eight. The extreme facility with which sounds are heard at a considerable distance in severely cold weather has often been a subject of remark; but a circumstance occurred at Port Bowen which deserves to be noticed, as affording a sort of measure of this facility, or at least conveying to others some definite idea of the fact. Lieutenant Foster, having occasion to send a man from the observatory to the opposite shore of the harbour, a measured distance of 6696 feet, or about one statute mile and two-tenths, in order to fix a meridian mark, had placed a second person half-way between to repeat his directions; but he found, on trial, that this precaution was unnecessary, as he could without difficulty keep up a conversation with the man at the distant station. The thermometer was at this time -18°, the barometer 30.14 inches, and the weather nearly calm, and quite clear and serene. The meteorological phenomena observed during this winter, like most of its other occurrences, differed so little in character from those noticed on the former voyages, as to render a separate description of each wholly unnecessary. This winter certainly afforded but few brilliant displays of the Aurora. The following notice includes all that appear to me to require a separate description.