But all the experiences of the winter were not so gratifying as these aerial displays. As soon as the snow lay thick on the ground the men banked it up against the sides of the house until they were completely covered in up to the eaves. It then froze on the outside, and the house was practically covered in with ice. This was of very great value in preventing the loss of heat from the interior, and, later on, in saving the house from being blown away in a terrific hurricane which occurred. But even with the protection of the frozen snow outside, and the constant burning of fires and lamps inside, the temperature of the house was, in midwinter, so cold that any water accidentally spilled on the floor turned to ice, and unless the ink-bottle was kept near a burning lamp, the ink froze at once. Outside everything except alcohol was frozen solid, the mercury being hard in the thermometers, and even the rum getting thick as syrup. The lime-juice, of which a daily ration was taken, was frozen into tablets, and so quickly did any liquid turn to ice that some of the sledge-dog puppies were frozen to the ground through running on to the place where the warm contents of the slush-bucket were thrown. Early in January the barometer, falling very rapidly, warned them that a severe storm was approaching. Suddenly a fierce gust of wind swept over the house, followed by a steady blow, the apparatus for registering the velocity of the wind showing it to be at the rate of eighteen miles an hour. The barometer continuing to fall, a man was sent out to take an observation from an outside station, but the force of the wind had increased so much that he could not face it alone, and two men had to go. The air was soon filled with driving snow, and the rate of the wind reached fifty miles an hour. It was now only possible for six men, supporting one another, to stand against the dense volumes of snow which the wind carried. When the velocity attained to sixty-five miles an hour, fears were entertained as to the safety of the house. But still the wind increased until, in a series of terrific gusts and squalls, the house rocked and trembled as the register marked ninety miles an hour. It was a moment of intense anxiety for the members of the party, for the destruction of the house at that period of the year would almost inevitably have meant their own destruction. Fortunately it was securely built and so well protected by the banked-up snow, that it withstood the fury of the hurricane.