202 THE FUR COUNTRY, bitter cold of winter should thicken its foundation and arrest its course at one and the same time. After his journey of discovery, Hobson estimated exactly the area of his new dominions. The island measured more than forty miles round, from which its superficial arrear would appear to be about one hundred and forty miles at the least. By way of comparison, we may say that Victoria Island was rather larger, than St Helena, and its area was about the same as that of Paris within the line of forti- fications. If then it should break up into fragments, the separate parts might still be of sufficient size to be habitable for some time. When Mrs Barnett expressed her surprise that a floating ice- field could be so large, Hobson replied by reminding her of the observations of Arctic navigators. Parry, Penny, and Franklin had met with ice-fields in the Polar seas one hundred miles long and fifty broad. Captain Kellet abandoned his boat on an ice-field measuring at least three hundred square miles, and what was Victoria Island compared to it ? Its size was, however, sufficient to justify a hope that it would resist the action of the warm currents until the cold weather set in. Hobson would not allow himself to doubt ; his despair arose rather from the knowledge that the fruit of all his cares, anxieties, and dangers must eventually be swallowed up by the deep, and it was no wonder that he could take no interest in the works that were going on. Mrs Barnett kept up a good heart through it all ; she encouraged her comrades in their work, and took her share in it, as if she had still a future to look forward to. Seeing what an interest Mrs Joliffe took in her plants, she joined her every day in the garden. There was now a fine crop of sorrel and scurvy-grass — thanks to the Corporal's unwearying exertions to keep off the birds of every kind, which congregated by hundreds. The taming of the reindeer had been quite successful ; there were now a good many young, and little Michael had been partly brought up on the milk of the mothers. There were now some thirty head in the herd which grazed near the fort, and a supply of the herbage on which they feed was dried and laid up for the winter. These useful animals, which are easily domesticated, were already quite familiar with all the colonists, and did not go far from the enceinte. Some of them were used in sledges to carry timber backwards and
