We are having considerable trouble in keeping our stoves burning. With the use of soft coal it is necessary to disturb the fire often, which makes the air unendurable because of the escape of poisonous gases, while it also fills the room with smoke and soot and ashes. The moisture which leaves the room through the stove draughts is condensed in the pipes and mixed with soot; the whole mass freezes, which occludes the opening of the pipe. To remove this obstruction it is necessary to take out the pipes once weekly and clean them, an operation of no little consequence in polar regions. This is the second expedition with which I have been connected where we have had the same trouble. It would be entirely overcome by the use of anthracite coal for the winter fires, instead of the bituminous, with its unnecessary filth. Mr. Peary has tried to overcome this by a substitution of oil stoves, but such a procedure, in my judgment, is not only accompanied by a polluted atmosphere causing headaches, insomnia, and difficulty of respiration, but it is quite dangerous to life. A coal fire removes from a room most of its poisonous gases and keeps up a free circulation of air, but an oil stove does just the reverse. An oil or a gas stove consumes air in a somewhat similar manner to man. It burns oxygen and gives off carbon dioxide and other gases. An ordinary oil stove will consume as much oxygen as fifteen men, and it does not replace the polluted air, as does a coal or wood fire. There is another point, which has been too little regarded in polar ventures. During the long months of winter darkness the life-giving rays of the sun are withdrawn, leaving the summer whiteness of the earth in cold and despondent blackness. Bright artificial lights relieve this to some extent, but all the animal organism is in a condition similar to that of a planet deprived of the direct sunlight. The skin is pale, the muscles are weak, and the organs refuse to perform their functions with usual vigour. This effect is most noticeable in the action of the heart which, during the long night, is deprived of its regulating force; now quick, now slow; then strong, again feeble, but never normal. The best substitute for this absence of the sun is the direct rays of heat from an open fire. From an ordinary coal or wood fire the effect is wonderful. I have stripped and placed men, before the direct rays of heat, whose pulse was almost imperceptible, and in the course of less than an hour had a heart action nearly normal. From an oil stove it is quite impossible to get this effect, hence its use in polar regions should be confined to camp life.