17. To obviate as far as possible the evils of too much leisure among the men, a school was instituted at the beginning of the January of the second year; Lieutenant Weyprecht, Brosch, and Orel undertook the Italians and Slavonians, and I the Tyrolese. To avoid all confusion I retired with my smaller body of pupils to the shed on deck. Here, with the thermometer at 25° to 37° below zero C., the seed of wisdom was sown in the hearts of these sons of nature; but alas! the climate was not favourable to its growth. After many painful disillusions, the Pole was ascertained to be the intersection of lines in a point, of which nothing was to be seen in reality. If in this little lecture-room an exercise had to be examined, and the scholars were obliged to hold in their breath, in order that the teacher, who spoke out of a cloud, might be able to see the slate; or when the pupils engaged in a division sum had suddenly to stop to rub their hands with snow, was it a matter of wonder if the school did not flourish exceedingly? 18. The food of the crew consisted principally of preserved meats, different kinds of pulse, and the products of the chase, amounting on an average to two bears a week. Bear-flesh, roasted, was liked by all; the seal was at first despised, till necessity corrected taste. Besides artificial wine, water was their strongest drink. CHAPTER VII. ICE-PRESSURES. 1. When compared with the tortures we endured from the thought that we were captives in the ice, little to us seemed the dangers which threatened our existence, though these assumed the appalling form of ice-pressures. Daily almost the ship had to sustain the attacks of our old enemy, and when the ice seemed to repose, threatening indications were not wanting to warn us how short that repose might be. My journal records a long series of commotions in the ice on almost every day of January 1873, and even during the pauses the timbers of the ship continually shook and trembled and creaked. The pressures accompanied by a low grumbling noise were very great on the 3rd, and lasted till the oldest ice was shattered, during which our hatchways were displaced. On the 4th the pressures continued without intermission during the whole day. But on the 22nd they exceeded all we had hitherto experienced. When we awoke in the morning, the crashing of the masses of ice was dreadful. In the messroom we heard a deep, grumbling, rumbling noise—the ship trembled like a steam-vessel under very high pressure. When we hastened on deck we were greeted by the long howls which issued from the ice, and we were soon convinced of the exceedingly formidable character of this special onset! Ten paces astern of the ship, the ice had been heaved up in a moment into mountains. With the greatest difficulty, amid the profound darkness that prevailed, the boats were got on board, and many stores re-shipped, though some of our coals had to be sacrificed. A tent