MRS PA ULINA BARNR TT S EXCURSION, 22$ «o that Hobson ho™d to be able to take his bearings the next day. The night was colder and a fine snow fell, which quickly covered the ground. This first sign of winter was hailed with delight by all who knew of the peril of their situation. On the 2nd September the sky gradually became free from -vapours of all kinds, and the sun again appeared. Patiently the Lieutenant awaited its culmination ; at noon he took the latitude, ^nd two hours later a calculation of hour-angles gave him the longitude. The following were the results obtained : Latitude, 70° 57' j longitude, 170° 30'. So that, in spite of the violence of the hurricane, the island had remained in much the same latitude, although it had been drifted somewhat farther west. They were now abreast of Behring Strait, but four hundred miles at least north of Capes East and Prince of Wales, which jut out on either side at the narrowest part of the The situation was, therefore, more dangerous than ever, as the island was daily getting nearer to the dangerous Kamtchatka Current, which, if it once seized it in its rapid waters, might carry it far away to the north. Its fate would now soon be decided. It would either stop where the two currents met, and there be shut in by the ice of the approaching winter, or it would be drifted away and lost in the solitudes of the remote hyperborean regions. Hobson was painfully moved on ascertaining the true state of things, and being anxious to conceal his emotion, he shiit himself up in his own room and did not appear again that day. With his chart before him, he racked his brains to find some way out of the diflficulties with which be was beset. The temperature fell some degrees farther the same day, and the mists, which had collected above the south-eastern horizon the day before, resolved themselves into snow during the night, so that the next day the white carpet was two inches thick. Winter was coming at last. On September 3rd Mrs Barnett resolved to go a few miles along the coast towards Cape Esquimaux. She wished to see for herself the changes lately produced. If she had mentioned her project to the Lieutenant, he would certainly have offered to accompany her ] but she did not wish to disturb him, and decided to go with-
