The thermometer stood at 31 deg. at midnight.
Having set off soon after midnight, at the distance of half a mile
in a N.b.E. direction we came to a piece of frozen water, half a
mile in length and two hundred yards wide, situated on the south
side of the range of hills which bound the prospect from Winter
Harbour. The ice on the surface of this lake or pond was in some
parts nearly dissolved, and in all too soft to allow us to cross
it. We halted at half past six A.M., and pitched the tents on the
hardest ground we could find, but it became quite swampy in the
course of the day. We killed seven ptarmigan, and saw two plovers
and two deer, being the first we had met with this season, with a
fawn so small as to leave no doubt of its having been dropped
since the arrival of the female upon the island. They were so wild
as not to allow us to approach them within a quarter of a mile.
The day was fine, with light and variable airs; the thermometer
stood at 34 deg. in the shade at seven A.M., at which time it was
unfortunately broken.
We again set forward at two A.M. on the 3d, crossing one or two
ravines, running E.N.E. and W.S.W., in which there was a large
collection of snow, but as yet no appearance of water in the
bottom of them.
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