Under such a temperature, the whale-fishery could not be prosecuted, for nature could not sustain continued exposure to the pungent force of the wind. With a calm atmosphere, however, the sensible effects of cold are singularly diminished; the cold of zero then becomes equally supportable with the temperature of 10, 15, or even 20 degrees, when impressed by a brisk wind; hence, the sensations produced on the body become a very equivocal criterion for estimating the degree of cold. The effect of cold in preventing the traversing of compasses, exposed to its influence, has been noticed by some navigators. As a remedy against this inconvenience, Ellis, in his voyage to Hudson’s Bay, suggests the propriety of removing the compasses into a warm place, by which the needles speedily resume their activity. I have found, by experiments, that neither the attractive nor directive power of the magnet suffers diminution by an increase of cold. There appears, however, to be an increase of friction, or the introduction of some unknown principle, which, when the degree of cold is very much increased, occasions a diminution in the mobility of magnetic needles. Many remarkable effects of cold are related in the journals of Polar navigators. Captain James, when wintering in Hudson’s Bay, latitude 52° north, experienced such cold, that, on the 10th December, many of the sailors had their noses, cheeks, and fingers, frozen as white as paper. Ellis, who wintered in the same region, latitude 57° 30′, found, by the 3rd of November, bottled beer, though wrapped in tow, and placed near a good, constant fire, frozen solid. Many of the sailors had their faces, ears, and toes frozen; iron adhered to their fingers; glasses used in drinking stuck to the mouth, and sometimes removed the skin from the lips or tongue; and a sailor, who inadvertently used his finger for stopping a spirit-bottle in place of a cork, while removing it from the house to his tent, had his finger fast frozen in the bottle, in consequence of which a part of it was obliged to be taken off to prevent mortification. A Hamburgh whaler, beset by the ice, near Spitzbergen, in the year 1769, was exposed to great danger. The effect of the frost was such, that the seams in the ship’s sides cracked with a noise resembling the report of a pistol. These openings at first rendered the vessel very leaky, but after she got free from the ice, and into a milder climate, they again closed.