March 20.--Although the wind which has swept the pack for the past few days has entirely subsided, the temperature has not fallen as low as we had expected. The thermometer has registered to -15° C. (5° F.) during the night, and is about -9° C. (15.8° F.) to-day. After these storms we usually have a few days of calm weather with a low temperature, and after each successive blow we find that the mercury settles closer and closer to the bulb. We are expecting every morning to find the quicksilver frozen. This is a cloudless day with a sharp sun and a blinding glitter. The topography about has changed much under the influence of the drift-snow during the last storm. About the ship there are huge drifts of snow which make it difficult to disembark. The old hummocks are reduced to little rounded hills, the small crevasses are filled with new ice and snow, and the entire pack of restless floes near the bark seems more like one homogeneous mass. Everything is restful and motionless, and covered with the white silence of death. We, of the scientific staff, have taken advantage of this promise of ice stability to make short excursions over the ice to the neighbouring bergs, and to interesting spots in the surrounding regions that we might better study the life and the upbuilding of the sea of ice in which we are fated to be kicked about, until the thaw of another year may set us free. The snow is sheeted with a hard crust, as it usually is after a storm, but we find it unsafe to travel even short distances without snowshoes. The depth of snow is such, and the crevasses are so numerous, that the small bearing surface of the foot is likely to permit us to sink down out of sight.