We were all prepared for a long and monotonous winter, and each one, according to his proclivities, had drawn out for himself a lengthy programme of improving study. One would read through Alison’s “History of Europe,” another would master Italian, a third preferred German; others chose music, and would learn the banjo, or, if the mess preferred it, the tambourine. But the historic programme only was carried out. Most of us found that our time was more than occupied with notes and observations of Arctic Nature that we might never have another opportunity of making. There was the electric, magnetic, microscopic, thermal, and chemical states of earth, air, ice, and water, and a hundred other pressing questions, that made us regret we had not spent our whole lives in preparation for our unlimited opportunities. Then there was other work that could not be postponed. It was above all things necessary to ascertain the exact position of our winter quarters, so that the geographical discoveries of the Expedition—the coast-lines passed by the ship as well as those traversed by sledges—might be fastened down to at least one fixed point. For this purpose, many careful observations of moon and stars were required, and the officer who had accepted the duties of astronomer had no easy time of it. He and his assistant spent many a chill hour watching the occultation or transit of some star or planet. The observatory is necessarily open to the air; snow-wreaths festoon its walls and corners. Every breath freezes on the metal and glasses of the telescope; even the vapour from the observer’s eye quickly clouds the lens. His assistant, utterly unrecognisable under a pile of furs and mufflers, stands shivering beside him, carefully keeping a chronometer from the cold, for neither watch nor chronometer will work in the temperature of Arctic night.