ROUTINE OF DUTIES.
The hunters continue to chase the reindeer and
foxes in the moonlight,—more, however, from habit
and for exercise than from any encouragement they
find in success; for, even when the moon shines, they
can shoot only at random. The work at the observatory
goes on, and when the magnetic "term day"
comes round we clamber over the ice-foot every hour,
and it marks an event. The occultations of Jupiter's
satellites are carefully observed through the telescope,
that our chronometers may not go astray; the tide
continues to rise and fall, regardless of the vast load
of ice that it lifts, and indifferent as to the fact that it
is watched. Dodge keeps up his ice-measurements,
and finds that the crystal table has got down to our
keel (6-1/2 feet), so that we are resting in a perfect cradle.
That the sailors may have something to do, I
have given them an hour's task each day sewing up
canvas bags for the spring journeys. From the officers
I continue to have the same daily reports; the
newspaper comes out regularly, and continues to
afford amusement; the librarian hands out the books
every morning, and they are well read; the officers
and the men have no new means of entertainment,
and usually fill up the last of the waking hours (I
cannot say the evening, where there is nothing else
but night) with cards and pipes. I go into the cabin
oftener than I used to; but I do not neglect my chess
with Knorr, and, until Sonntag left us, I filled up
a portion of every evening in converse with him, and,
for the lack of any thing new, we talked over and
over again of our summer plans, and calculated to a
nicety the measure of our labor, and the share which
each would take of the work laid out.
And thus we jog on toward the spring; but each
