An electric signal has been arranged so that Dobrowolski, who assists Lecointe, can remain in a comfortable stateroom with the chronometer to fix the time for the observations. The captain has exhausted every ingenuity to make the work as agreeable as possible, but there seems to be no way to lessen materially his own discomforts while sighting the stars. The observatory is sheltered from the wind, but the air in it is just as cold as that outside. To-night the temperature was almost -28° during the time of the observation. The difficulty of keeping the teeth from chattering, the eyes from quivering, or the instruments from shaking, can be more easily imagined than explained. Danco came in after making his sights with a frosted foot, and with a piece of skin, torn from his eye, frozen to the metal of the eye-piece of his instrument. Lecointe lost some of his eye-lashes, and a bit of his ear was white. Both Danco and Lecointe have resolved to cover the metal parts of all instruments with flannel in the future, and from them we have copied the idea and covered the metallic portions of everything we use for our work outside. It is, however, an almost daily occurrence to have men come to me with fingers “burnt,” as they express it, by contact with bits of cold metal. One sailor, who was at work between decks nailing up cases containing geological specimens, placed two nails in his mouth. He snatched them out quickly, bringing along bits of his tongue and lip, and leaving ugly wounds which in character were exactly like the injuries of a hot iron. The sailors who have metallic pegs in their boots claim that ice-caps form under their feet. This I have taken as a sailor’s yarn, but to-night I went on deck in slippers; on returning my stockings were thoroughly wet,--removing the slippers to discover the source of humidity I saw about a dozen, glistening caps of ice that had formed over nails which had been carelessly driven through the soles. These things seem incredible, but similar instances are repeated daily.