The weather during winter was, as a rule, so calm and clear that observations on the stars could be made almost at any time; but it was not a little remarkable that, even at the clearest times, some icy dust, too fine to be called snow, was always falling. On the 27th December, for example, it was so clear that a star of the third magnitude less than three degrees from the northern horizon could be satisfactorily observed. And yet, in twelve hours, a glass plate exposed on top of a neighbouring hill collected a quantity of little crystals equal to nine tons per square mile. These crystals, not to be confounded with icy dew formed on the plate itself, were altogether too small to be seen with the naked eye; but there was no difficulty in using a microscope, even in the lowest temperatures, except that the mercurial reflector was soon destroyed by the cold. It was when these crystals assumed their simpler shapes, and were abundant in the air, that the moon appeared decked in those halos and crosses known as _paraselena_, or mock moons. Twice in December we had good examples of them. Upon each occasion the moon appeared in the centre of a large and luminous cross, surrounded by two circles plainly distinguishable between us and the snow-clad land. The cross swayed and trembled with every breath of air, and vanished altogether when wind disturbed the tissue of falling crystals; but the halos were more permanent. Plate No. 7 gives a better idea of them than any verbal description. It is a reproduction of a sketch made early in the morning of the 11th of December. Our long-lost wanderer, Sally, absent since 15th October, when she was left by a sledging party near Sickle Point, had just put in an appearance, and may be seen in the foreground intensely watching the proceedings of two officers engaged in measuring the holes with a sextant. [Illustration: PLATE VIII.—LUNAR HALOES.—p. 44. This is a sketch, from the floes alongside the ship, of an unusually distinct Paraselena that appeared on 11th December, 1875. The haloes and cross round the moon are caused by the passage of her light through a tissue of impalpably minute needle-like crystals of ice slowly falling through the atmosphere. The snow-covered hills of Floeberg Beach are in the background, and in the foreground two officers are measuring the arc with a sextant, while the long-lost Sally looks on. In summer the sun was often surrounded by a similar meteor, but intensely dazzling, and tinted with colours like an outside rainbow.]