During the past days of the night we have made soundings of the sea, and have taken samples of submarine and surface life. This has given Arctowski and Racovitza an abundance of work. It is interesting to see them plod along, working steadily and faithfully in the dark laboratory, packing away specimens, jotting down notes, stooping over the microscopes and other instruments, always with a pencil in one hand, and a stick in the other to greet the first man who dares to interrupt them in their den. Poor fellows!--their faces are tired and drawn, as if some great calamity had come upon them. Danco is keeping up with doggish persistency his magnetic observations, the details of which are such that he is almost constantly occupied during working hours. He is steadily failing, but he complains little and keeps up a kind of abnormal cheerfulness. The meteorological work is now the most troublesome task, for it requires some one to make the observations every hour, and sometimes oftener. Each of us had planned a work of some magnitude to be completed before sunrise. Commandant de Gerlache started to rewrite the ship’s log. Lecointe began to complete the details of the summer’s hydrographic work. Racovitza, in addition to regular laboratory work, was to plan the outlines of a new book on the geographical distribution of life. Arctowski had in mind a dozen scientific problems to elucidate. Amundsen entered into a co-partnership with me to make new and more perfect travelling equipment; and in addition to this, I had the anthropological work of the past summer to place into workable order, and a book on antarctic exploration. Thus we had placed before us the outline for industrious occupation; but we did little of it. As the darkness increased our energy waned. We became indifferent, and found it difficult to concentrate our minds or fix our efforts to any one plan of action. (The work mapped out was partly accomplished, but it was done after the return of the sun.) The regular routine of our work is tiresome in the extreme, not because it is difficult of execution or requires great physical exertion, but because of its monotony. Day after day, week after week, and month after month we rise at the same hour, eat the same things, talk on the same subjects, make a pretense of doing the same work, and look out upon the same icy wilderness. We try hard to introduce new topics for thought and new concoctions for the weary stomach. We strain the truth to introduce stories of home and of flowery future prospects, hoping to infuse a new cheer; but it all fails miserably. We are under the spell of the black antarctic night, and, like the world which it darkens, we are cold, cheerless, and inactive. We have aged ten years in thirty days.