15. But Nature’s laws held their own course, undisturbed by our desires. Snow continued to fall in abundance, and spread its mantle over the ice. The constant round of downfalls and evaporation was a sad bar to our hopes. In the beginning of May the snow began to thaw on the surface, and became soft and sticky. Even in the depth of winter it was never hard, but like the fine dry grains of driving sand. This change in the snow, which occurs a fortnight earlier than in Greenland, compelled us to substitute our black leather boots for those of sailcloth, which we had hitherto worn. On the 2nd of May the temperature fell to -8° F., but it now began to rise gradually, so that it sometimes reached the freezing point about the end of the month, and on the 29th rose five degrees above it. The mean temperature of the month, however, was not above 16° F. But the difference of temperature in the sun and the shade became greater and greater. The thermometer marked -18° F. at 6 P.M. of the 1st of May, and on the 11th the black-bulb thermometer showed 90° F. at 3 P.M., while the common instrument gave only 14° F. In the middle of the month, after the heavy winds fell, we were enveloped with dark fog banks; stray beams of the sun broke through the warm misty atmosphere, and dark skies were succeeded by masses of white vapour illuminated by the sun. Just as in our happier clime, the Arctic April has her alternations of cloud and sunshine. 16. Hitherto the only birds which had visited us were divers and gulls. Once only a snow-bunting flew among us, and fearlessly settled on the ship. On the 24th of May the auks made their appearance, and from that date we were constantly entertained by the whirring sounds of their flight. As they keep one direction in their flight, we could shoot those only which passed over the ship; they were a useful addition to our table, though they had to be steeped in vinegar to make them palatable. The majestic Burgomaster Gull appeared somewhat later, and later still the “Ice-birds” frequented the shores of the lakes around us, and hovered round the remains of the bears we had shot. These birds settled with the greatest boldness in the immediate neighbourhood of the ship, and day and night filled the air with their wild shrill cries. 17. By the middle of March, Krisch, the engineer, had put the steam machinery in working order, but another month elapsed before the screw-propeller, which had been frozen fast, was set free; our fears lest it should refuse to act proved to be groundless. As, however, there was no prospect of our being able to use steam for some time, it was thought advisable to dig out and raise the rudder in order to secure it.