The meteorological observations were always taken by the officers of the watch, by Lieutenant Brosch, Midshipman Orel, the boatswain Lusina, and Captain Carlsen. Krisch, our engineer, who shared in this labour during the first winter was exempted from it in the second year, owing to his failing health. Readings of the thermometers were taken every two hours; observations to ascertain the moisture of the air were made by the psychrometer during the summer months; the direction and force of the winds, the amount of precipitation, the form and character of the clouds were carefully noted down. As their labours were zealously and conscientiously carried out for one year and a half, and chiefly in regions never before visited, the results are of peculiar importance.[59] The direction and force of the winds seemed in the first year to be nearly in equilibrium, save that in the south air-currents from the south-west generally prevailed, while in the north the prevailing air-currents were from the north-east.

Thunder-storms never occurred; even on the northern shores of Siberia they are seldom experienced. The forms of the clouds in Arctic regions have never the sharply-defined contours of those in more southerly latitudes. In summer they increase in fulness, and in winter they consist chiefly of vapours and frosty mists which throw dark inky hues over the brightness of the nights. The proverbial clearness of the heavens, of which Koldewey, Kane, Middendorf, and Wrangel speak, is found in the high north, as also in the tropics only over the greater masses of land. “The clouds,” says Weyprecht, “have either the uniform dull grey aspect of elevated fog, or they assume the cirrus form, and the latter is not as with us the fleecy mass rising high above the horizon, but consists of masses of mist rising little above it, which very seldom assume the sharply-defined forms which are seen in more southern regions. Instead of clouds gloomy fogs prevail, sometimes rising high, sometimes also close to the ground as if they were nailed to it. Four-and-twenty hours of clear weather rarely occur in summer; generally after shining for a few hours the sun disappears behind dense fogs. Dull and gloomy as these fogs are, they maintain the conditions which we find in the regions of ice,—they prevent the escape of the sun’s heat and they act more potently on the ice than its direct rays.” With respect to the winds he adds: “Until the autumn of the second year, the winds were of a very variable nature. In the neighbourhood of Novaya Zemlya we had many south-east and south-west winds; in the spring the winds were more from the north-east. A prevailing direction of the wind was only discernible when we lay in our second winter under Franz-Josef Land. Here all snow-storms and about 50 per cent. of the winds come from east-north-east. These winds were mostly accompanied by clouds, which were dispersed only when the wind veered more to the north. The force of the wind is mitigated by the ice. Very frequently fog masses are seen driving rapidly at no very great height above the ice, while below them there is almost a calm. In the January of the two years we passed in the north, it was very interesting to observe the struggle between the cold winds from the north and the warmer winds of the south. The approach of warm winds from the south and south-west brought masses of snow, and in a short time produced a rise of temperature amounting to 67° to 79° F.”

Falls of snow take place at all seasons of the year; but as they generally occur accompanied with strong winds, it is not very easy to determine the depth of the layers. Apart from extreme cases of snow-drifts the mean depth of the snow on the ice during winter was about three feet, and it is more considerable under the land than at a distance from it. Rain falls almost exclusively only during the few months of summer, and generally in fine showers, never in the sudden torrents of southern latitudes. More rain fell with us in our second than in our first summer.

I was impossible, owing to our continual change of place, to give the barometrical means for any particular locality; in the following table, therefore, the monthly mean only is noted. The thermometers we used were placed at the distance of five-and-twenty paces from the ship, so that they were pretty well isolated from any influence due to it, and they were raised four feet above the surface of the snow.[60]

Readings of the minimum thermometer were taken at noon every day in the year, and of the black-bulb thermometer at different times of the day during the summer. The time of the day when the temperature reached its maximum was irregular during the winter; it occurred about two o’clock in the afternoon when the spring was well advanced. As I have already inserted in the course of the narrative the temperatures of each day in the month, it will be enough for the purposes of a general survey to give here a summary of the mean monthly temperatures and of the maximum and minimum extremes:—

Note.—The temperatures are given in RÉaumur degrees. By adding one-fourth, the numbers given in the three last columns will be reduced to Centigrade degrees.

II.
DIRECTION AND FORCE OF THE WIND, FROM OBSERVATIONS ON BOARD THE “TEGETTHOFF.”