Towards the end of May a great deal of snow was dissolved daily, but owing to the porous nature of the ground, which absorbed it as fast as it was formed, it was not easy to procure water for drinking on shore, even as late as the 10th of June. In the ravines, however, it could be heard trickling under stones before that time, and about the 18th, many considerable streams were formed, and constantly running both night and day. After this, the thawing proceeded at an inconceivably rapid rate, the whole surface of the floes being covered with large pools of water rapidly increasing in size and depth. We observed nothing extraordinary with respect to the sun’s light about the shortest day; but as early as the 20th of November Arcturus could very plainly be distinguished by the naked eye, when near the south meridian at noon. About the first week in April the reflection of light from the snow became so strong as to create inflammation in the eyes, and notwithstanding the usual precaution of wearing black crape veils during exposure, several cases of snow-blindness occurred shortly afterwards. There are perhaps few things more difficult to obtain than a comparative measure of the quantity of snow that falls at different places, owing to the facility with which the wind blows it off a smooth surface, such as a floe of level ice, and the collection occasioned by drift in consequence of the smallest obstruction. Thus, its mean depth at Port Bowen, measured in twenty different places on the smooth ice of the harbour, was three inches on the 5th of April, and on the 1st of May it had only increased to four and a half inches, while an immense bank, fourteen feet deep, had formed on one side of the _Hecla_, occasioned by the heavy drifts. The crystals were, as usual, extremely minute during the continuance of the cold weather, and more or less of these were always falling, even on the clearest days. The animals seen at Port Bowen may now be briefly noticed. The principal of those seen during the winter were bears, of which we killed twelve, from October to June, being more than during all the other voyages taken together; and several others were seen. One of these animals was near proving fatal to a seaman of the _Fury_, who, having straggled from his companions, when at the top of a high hill saw a large bear coming towards him. Being unarmed, he prudently made off, taking off his boots to enable him to run the faster, but not so prudently precipitated himself over an almost perpendicular cliff, down which he was said to have rolled or fallen several hundred feet; here he was met by some of the people in so lacerated a condition as to be in a very dangerous state for some time after.