There was now sufficient daylight, from eight o'clock till four,
to enable us to perform with great facility any work outside the
ships. I was not sorry to commence upon some of the occupations
more immediately connected with the equipment of the ships for sea
than those to which we had hitherto been obliged to have recourse
as mere employment. We therefore began this day to collect stones
for ballast, of which it was calculated that the Hecla would
require in the spring nearly seventy tons, besides twenty tons of
additional water, to make up for the loss of weight by the
expenditure of provisions and stores. These stones were brought
down on sledges about half a mile to the beach, where they were
broken into a convenient size for stowage, and then weighed in
scales erected on the beach for the purpose; thus affording to the
men a considerable quantity of bodily exercise whenever the
weather would permit them to be so employed.
The distance at which sounds were heard in the open air, during
the continuance of intense cold, was so great as constantly to
afford matter of surprise to us, notwithstanding the frequency
with which we had occasion to remark it. We have, for instance,
often heard people distinctly conversing, in a common tone of
voice, at the distance of a mile; and to-day I heard a man singing
to himself as he walked along the beach, at even a greater
distance than this.
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