On the 26th a large party started with the object of establishing a dépôt of provisions as far in advance to the north-west as possible. This party consisted of two seven-man sledges and one eleven-man sledge; they were provisioned for twenty days. The sledges were weighted to 200 lb. a man. The eleven-man sledge proved too heavy for the young ice, and another seven-man sledge had to be taken instead. The temperature during the first night fell to 1 degree below zero. On the 5th of October, Lieutenant Aldrich returned with eleven dogs harnessed to one sledge on which his light gear was secured. Everything else had been left a few miles behind to enable him to reach the ship that night. The dogs, sinking as they frequently did in the soft snow up to their muzzles, had proved to be nearly useless, and but for the help of the men the sledge would have had to be abandoned. Aldrich had succeeded in reaching Cape Joseph Henry, and had spent three days in exploring the neighbourhood. The floebergs and rugged ice piled directly against the precipitous face of the cliffs, with an extremely rough pack in constant motion, effectually prevented sledges being dragged round the cape; but fortunately there was a fair prospect of finding a level road overland to the sea on the other side of the cape in the spring. On the 27th September, Aldrich had succeeded in reaching latitude 82° 48′ N., a higher latitude than had ever before been attained, Parry’s 82° 45′ reached in 1827 having now been beaten. As regards the use of dogs, Aldrich on this journey formed the opinion that when the snow becomes more than a foot deep, they are not of much value. The large sledge-party which succeeded in establishing a dépôt of provisions at Cape Joseph Henry returned on September 14th. Out of the party of twenty-one men and three officers, seven men and one officer returned to the ship badly frost-bitten, three of them so severely as to render amputation necessary, the patients being confined to their beds for the greater part of the winter. The frost-bites were attributable entirely to the wet sludgy state of some of the ice that had to be crossed. The temperature ranged between 15° above and 22° below zero. On this journey attention was drawn to the fact that the barrels of the breech-loading fowling-pieces became contracted by the cold to such an extent that the paper cartridges which at a higher temperature fitted well could not be inserted until the outside paper had been stripped off. The sun disappeared on the 11th October, but for some time afterwards there was twilight during five or six hours of the day. The first sign of an aurora was seen on the 26th October; on the 27th stars were visible at noon. On the 8th November, with a perfectly clear sky, the noon twilight was insufficient to enable one to make out the words in a _Times_ leading article, when the paper was held up facing the south. On the 9th November, Nares writes:—