absorb a new train of thoughts, life would be bearable. Certainly the cold is not a cause of serious suffering in the antarctic, for I have shivered more in New York. [Illustration: Crab-eater (_Lobodon Carcinophaga_).] [Illustration: Ross-Seal (_Ommatophoca Rossi_).] [Illustration: True Sea-Leopard (_Ogmorhynus Leptonyx_).] April 12.--Snow is falling in huge flakes. The temperature is now rising, but during the night it fell to -23.5° C. The wind is east-north-east. The ice continues to separate, but we have seen no life to-day. We are still at work housing the _Belgica_ and fitting the cabins for the long imprisonment. It is warm, and dull, and gloomy, making the air on board unendurable. Everything about the decks and the doors is moist, and the coating of hoar-frost, which yesterday made every nail and every bit of iron sparkle, is melting, making the floors, the table, and the chairs uncomfortably wet. April 14.--The wind has veered to the south-east and is coming with increasing force charged with a dry sand-like snow which cuts the skin like a knife. Temperature, 6 A.M., -8°; 10 A.M., -19°. We saw two finback whales and one snow petrel. As is always the case when the air is charged with drift snow, we have a variety of sun and moon dogs to-day. At 7 P.M. there was in the south-east an unusual aurora. It was an arc with steady brilliancy, and to the westward were fragments of two additional arcs. April 15.--To-night we saw an aurora of exactly the same form as last night, in the same position, appearing first at the same hour. The zenith has been clear, but the horizon has been hazed by the suspended ice specular which again made a countless number of sun and moon halos, parhelias, and paraselenes.