1. We Spent the latter half of August in seal-hunting, for it was only by the use of fresh meat that we were able to contend with, if not prevent, cases of scurvy. Day after day lines of hunters lay in wait before the fissures at the edge of our floe, and in the evening our dogs generally had to drag in the sledges several seals to the ship. Many of these creatures which we wounded sank and disappeared. All these seals belonged to the class Phoca Grœnlandica. Walruses were never to be seen, and once only in an “ice-hole” we came across a shoal of white whales, which however seemed to be moving on. In the capture of seals we sometimes used a light boat, made of water-proof sailcloth, which two men could easily drag out of the water. Some of our people too had learnt the use of the harpoon. By the end of September we had killed in one way or another some forty seals, and as we shot many of the birds which flew round us, and on an average one bear a week, we were seldom without fresh meat. With the exception of Krisch, the engineer, who suffered from lung disease, and of the carpenter, who had become lame from a scorbutic contraction of the joints, all on the sick list recovered under the influence of work in the open air and of the improved diet. 2. The covering of deep soft snow, which had been so troublesome, almost disappeared at the beginning of autumn, and the surface of the ice had been transformed by evaporation into a firm mass like the congealed snow of a glacier, so that we were able to walk on its hard surface without sinking; only the numerous small ice-lakes, on the floes, impeded our excursions. In all these signs, we were reminded of the near approach of winter, and it seemed that, drifting as we were constantly towards the north, we should spend it nearer to the Pole than any other expedition had ever done. On the 25th the sun set at midnight. The period intervening between this and the time when the sun ceases to reappear may be regarded as the autumn of the Arctic region. For some time the light had so diminished, that our quarters again became dark at night, and from the 19th of July we were obliged to use a light in order to read at midnight. On the 29th of August, after falls of rain and snow succeeded by north winds, the ship was stiffened in a coating of ice. The rigging was covered with an incrustation of ice of an inch thick, and pieces of ice of a pound weight sometimes fell on the deck, rendering walking on it neither comfortable nor safe. After a succession of frosts and thaws, complete congelation at last set in, and when the moon was up, the masts and rigging shone like burnished silver.