4. We observed during this winter, that, on the clearest nights, snow of the finest texture continued to fall, so that we saw the heavenly bodies, as it were, through a veil of fine gauze. In the moonlight this fine snow sparkled faintly, and its presence could only be discovered by a prickling on the skin. The constancy of these downfalls added of course to the depth of the snow under which the _Tegetthoff_ was almost buried; indeed at the beginning of the spring she no longer stood out from the covering of snow, although her fore-part was eleven-and-three-quarter feet, and her after-part four-and-a-half feet, above the ice on which she rested. The air was also often filled with an indescribable quantity of driving snow; and when the wind dropped and permitted it to fall, we were struck with the profound stillness of our environment. The cold constantly increased and penetrated all the parts of the interior of the ship which were not artificially heated,[23] and almost all the fluids, which were not specially protected, were frozen. The various kinds of spirits on board were exposed on the 23rd of November to the cold at -26° F.; at the end of an hour-and-a-half they still remained fluid. When the temperature fell to -31° F., hollands, common gin and maraschino were congealed in two-hours-and-a-half, but rum and brandy remained unchanged. On another occasion a mixture of two parts of pure alcohol to one part of water froze at -47° F., cognac at -53° F. This low temperature had so increased the thickness of the ice, that the basin of open water, which had been sawed through in the previous summer, was covered on the 3rd of January with ice three-and-a-half, and on the 20th with ice six-and-a-half feet thick. [Illustration: NOON ON DECEMBER 21, 1873.] 5. On the 21st of December, the middle of the second long Polar night—which lasted in all 125 days—was reached; and although we knew where the south lay, every trace of twilight had disappeared, and for six weeks we were enveloped in unbroken darkness. The figure of a man could not be discerned at a very short distance. In order to be able to sketch the ship, I had to illuminate it by torches. Those who made expeditions afoot were struck, as it were, with blindness. If they approached what seemed to be a lofty chain of mountains, over the ridge of which the planet Jupiter hung like a glowing point, they came at once on a dark wall of ice; and when they ascended the apparently far distant ridge, the planet stood almost in the zenith. There was something approaching to twilight only when the crescent moon shone in her first quarter. On the 7th of December the sun was 12°, and on the 21st 14½°, below the horizon. We should not have seen the sun, could we have ascended the pinnacle of the Alps, which Pliny imagined to be 120,000 feet high, or even from that summit of the Caucasus which Aristotle reckoned at 230,000 feet.