Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1879-05-14
Life In n Snow Hut.

Professor l.. Lummelein, of Wisconsin,
naturalist of the Arctic expedition on board
the ship Florence, has written the follow
ing letter to friend in Milwaukee. From
st. Johns to Cumberland Sound we encoun-
tered only four terrible gales making the
passage in fifteen days-going over the same
distance in thirty-five hours that took us
sixteen days last year, when we were forty
one days to our first harbor. When we left
our winter harbor July 9TH, or more pro-
perly the 18th, as this was the date we fairly
got underway we took the ice and worked
through two hundred and fifty miles of it.
1t was here that the schooner got jammed
aud sprung a leak that closed after we got
to anchor on the Greenland coast, and re-
opened on the 18th of October off Sable.
As you know there was no expedition to
meet us, so we had TO 90 back again to Cum
berland with our sixteen EsquimauX and
thirty dogs, with all their accOuterments.
We had but got fairly started when the
wind sprung up from the southeast. IL
soon increased to fair gale, and kept in
creasing. We were in close proximity to
the heavy Bafiin's Bay back (the heaviest
ever known-no vessel got through, and
drifting right into it. We lay hove to four
days. and when it cleared we found our
selves in the mouth of Exeter Sound. two
hundred miles to the westward of our course.
We had drifted all this time among hundreds
of icebergs without getting foul of any.
The poor Esquimaux were battened down
in the hold all this time, and thirty wild
dogs running the decks. This was the
heaviest gale We have encountered, and
came within an ace of tripping the schooner
many times. One sea swept everything oil
the decks and one the house, but we only
lost four dogs. So much, briefly, for the
passage. My companion and | lived IN
snow hut eight months on a small island
No light but tin box with an oil burner in
it, and burning seal oil. Our allowance OF
fuel gave out two months before the cold
weather did. Our greatest cold was in jan
uarv. 1t was fifty-two degrees, or eighty
two degrees below freezing point. The mer-
curry exposed in a dish frOze solid, so as to
be handled like CHIP, at forty-two degrees
The heaviest snow fell on June 9Th, 9th and
9TH, and walked ashore on the ice on the
14th of July On the last day of April |
undertook a long journey with some Esqui
mauX with dog teams, and while sleeping
alongside of the shed, thirty-five miles from
land, with forty mile north wind blowing
and temperature of forty-one degrees,
either froze or caught cold in the first finger
of my left hand, which left me a crippled
hand until the end of July, and | now have
a much deformed and nearly useless finger.
froze my nose times without number, even
after | made a thick covering of some heavy
cloth your mother gave me for the purpose.
| substituted fine reindeer skin while travel
ing, which answered better. One of the
sailors froze foot so badly that he was
laid up for seven months. This was IN
November, while trying to take care of a
whale / have not been sick day since
left New London. My bunk is just six feet
long. two and one-half feet wide, and the
same height. In this space | slept, worked
and studied. In it | kept three guns, all
my clothes, bedding, forty-two books, pipes,
tobacco and hundred other things. You
shake your head, and would say, if you
knew Esquimaux, ''hjnnat e6in ShdHg-
leRting' But it is the fact.