wood-end, drive a few spikes, cork, and replace the copper. Roswell, who was getting each moment more and more impatient to sail, was much vexed at a delay that really seemed unavoidable, as it arose from the peculiar position of the leak. Placed as it was, in a manner, between wind and water, it was not possible to work at it more than an hour each tide; and the staging permitted but two hands to be busy at the same time. As a consequence of these embarrassments, no less than six tides came in and went out, before the stem was pronounced tight again. The schooner was then pumped out, and the vessel was once more taken into deep water. This time it was found that the patience and industry of our sealers were rewarded with success ; no leak of any account existing.

"She's as tight as a bottle with a sealed cork, Gar'ner,” cried Daggett, a few hours after his craft was at anchor, meeting his brother-master at his own gangway, and shaking hands with him cordially. "I owe much of this to you, as all on the Vineyard shall know, if we ever get home ag'in."

I am rejoiced that it turns out so, Captain Daggett," was Roswell's reply; "for to own the truth to you, the fortnight we have lost, or shall lose, before we get you stowed and ready to sail again, has made a great change in our weather. The days are shortening with frightful rapidity, and the great bay was actually covered with a skim of ice this very morning. The wind has sent in a sea that has broke it up; but look about you in the cove here-a boy might walk on that ice near the rocks."

'There'll be none of it left by night, and the two crews will fill me up in twenty-four hours. Keep a good heart, Gar'ner; I'll take you clear of the bergs in the course of the week.”

"I have less fear of the bergs now, than of the new ice and the floes. The islands must have got pretty well to the northward by this time; but each night gets colder, and the fields seem to be setting back towards the group, instead of away from it.'

Daggett_cheered his companion by a good deal of confident talk; but Roswell was heartily rejoiced when, at the end of fourand-twenty hours more, the Vineyard craft was pronounced entirely ready. It was near the close of the day, and Gardiner was for sailing, or moving at once; but Daggett offered several very reasonable objections. In the first place, there was no wind; and Roswell's proposition to tow the schooners out into the middle of the bay, was met by the objection that the people had been hard at work for several days, and that they needed some rest. All that could be gained by moving the schooners then, was to get them outside the skim of ice that now regularly formed every still night near the land. but which was as regularly broken and

dispersed by the waves, as soon as the wind returned. Roswell, however, did not like the appearances of things; and he deter mined to take his own craft outside, let Daggett do as he might After discussing the matter in vain, therefore, and finding tha the people of the other schooner had eaten their suppers and turned in, he called all hands, and made a short address to his own crew, leaving it to their own discretion whether to man the boats or not. As Roswell had pointed out the perfect absence of wind, the smoothness of the water, and the appearances of a severe frost, or cold-for frost there was now, almost at mid-day, the men came reluctantly to his view of the matter, and consented to work instead of sleeping. The toil, however, could be much lessened, by dividing the crew into the customary watches. A!! that Roswell aimed at was to get his schooner about a league from the cove, which would be taking her without a line drawn from cape to cape, the greatest danger of new ice being within the curvature of the crescent. This he thought might easily be done in the course of a few hours; and, should there come any wind, much sooner. On explaining this to the crew, the men were satisfied. Roswell Gardiner felt as if a load were taken off his spirits, when his schooner was clear of the ground, and his mainsail was hoisted. A boat was got ahead, and the craft was slowly towed out of the cove, the canvas doing neither good nor harm. As the vessel passed that of Daggett, the last was on deck; the only person visible in the Vineyard craft. He wished his brother master a good night, promising to be out as soon as there was any light next morning.

It would not be easy to imagine a more dreary scene than that in which Deacon Pratt's schooner moved out into the waters that separated the different islands of this remote and sterile group. Roswell could just discern the frowning mass of the rocks that crowned the centre of Sealer's Land; and that was soon lost in the increasing obscurity. The cold was getting to be severe, and the men soon complained that ice was forming on the blades of their oars. Then it was that a thought occurred to our young mariner, which had hitherto escaped him. Of what use would it be for his vessel to be beyond the ice, if that of Daggett should be shut in the succeeding day? So sensible did he become to the importance of this idea, that he called in his boat, and pulled back into the cove, in order to make one more effort to persuade Daggett to follow him out.

Gardiner found all of the Vineyarders turned in, even to their officers. The fatigue they had lately undergone, united to the cold, rendered the berths very agreeable; and even Daggett ́begged his visitor would excuse him for not rising to receive his guest. Argument with a man thus circumstanced and so dis

posed, was absolutely useless. After remaining a short time with Daggett, Roswell returned to his own schooner. As he pulled back, he ascertained that ice was fast making; and the boat actually cut its way through a thin skim, ere it reached the vessel.

Our hero was now greatly concerned lest he should be frozen in himself, ere he could get into the more open water of the bay. Fortunately a light air sprung up from the northward, and trimming his sails, Gardiner succeeded in carrying his craft to a point where the undulations of the ground-swell gave the assurance of her being outside the segment of the crescent. Then he brailed his foresail, hauled the jib-sheet over, lowered his gaff, and put his helm hard down. After this, all the men were permitted to seek their berths; the officers looking out for the craft in turns. It wanted about an hour of day, when the second mate gave Roswell a call, according to orders. The young master found no wind, but an intensely cold morning, on going on deck. Ice had formed on every part of the rigging and sides of the schooner where water had touched them; though the stillness of the night, by preventing the spray from flying, was much in favour of the navigators in this respect. On thrusting a boat-hook down, Roswell ascertained that the bay around him had a skim of ice nearly an inch in thickness. This caused him great uneasiness; and he waited with the greatest anxiety for the return of light, in order to observe the condition of Daggett.

Sure enough, when the day came out distinctly, it was seen that ice of sufficient thickness to bear men on it covered the entire surface within the crescent. Daggett and his people were already at work on it, using the saw. They must have taken the alarm before the return of day; for the schooner was not only free from the ground, but had been brought fully a cable's length without the cove. Gardiner watched the movements of Daggett and his crew with a glass for a short time, when he ordered all hands called. The cook was already in the galley, and a warm breakfast was soon prepared. After eating this, the two whale-boats were lowered, and Roswell and Hazard both rowed as far as the ice would permit them, when they walked the rest of the way to the imprisoned craft, taking with them most of their hands, together with the saw.

It was perhaps fortunate for Daggett that it soon began to blow fresh from the northward, sending into the bay a considerable sea, which soon broke up the ice, and enabled the Vineyard craft to force her way through the fragments, and join her consort about noon.

Glad enough was Roswell to regain his own vessel; and he made sail on a wind, determined to beat out of the narrow

waters at every hazard, the experience of that night having told him that they had remained in the cove too long. Daggett followed willingly, but not like a man who had escaped by the skin of his teeth from wintering near the antarctic circle.

CHAPTER XXII.

"Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,

There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead."-Longfellow.

Most of our readers will understand what was meant by Mary Pratt's "inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of its orbit;" but as there may be a few who do not, and as the consequences of this great physical fact are materially connected with the succeeding events of the narrative, we propose to give such a homely explanation of the phenomenon as we humbly trust will render it clear to the most clouded mind. The orbit of the earth is the path which it follows in space in its annual revolution around the sun. To a planet there is no up or down, except as ascent and descent are estimated from and towards itself. In all other respects it floats in vacuum, or what, is so nearly so as to be thus termed. Now, let the uninstructed reader imagine a large circular table, with a light on its surface, and near to its centre. The light shall represent the sun, the outer edge of the circle of the table the earth's orbit, and its surface the plane of that orbit. In nature there is no such thing as a plane at all, the space within the orbit being vacant; but the surface of the table gives a distinct notion of the general position of the earth as it travels round the sun. It is scarcely necessary to say that the axis of the earth is an imaginary line drawn through the planet, from one pole to the other; the name being derived from the supposition that our daily revolution is made on this axis.

Now, the first thing that the student is to fix in his mind, in order to comprehend the phenomenon of the seasons, is the leading fact that the earth does not change its attitude in space, if we may so express it, when it changes its position. If the axis were perpendicular to the plane of the orbit, this circumstance would not affect the temperature, as the simplest experiment will show. Putting the equator of a globe on the outer cdge of the table, and holding it perfectly upright, causing it to turn on its axis as it passes round the circle, it would be found that the light from the centre of the table would illumine just

one half of the globe, at all times and in all positions, cutting the two poles. Did this movement correspond with that of nature, the days and nights would be always of the same length, and there would be no changes of the seasons, the warmest weather being nearest the equator, and the cold increasing as the poles were approached. Nowhere, however, would the cold be so intense as it now is, nor would the heat be as great as at present, except at or quite near to the equator. The first fact would be owing to the regular return of the sun, once in twentyfour hours; the last to the oblique manner in which its rays struck this orb, in all places but near its centre.

But the globe ought not to be made to move around the table with its axis perpendicular to its surface, or to the "plane of the earth's orbit.' In point of fact, the earth is inclined to this plane, and the globe should be placed at a corresponding inclination. Let the globe be brought to the edge of the table, at its south side, and with its upper or north pole inclining to the sun, and then commence the circuit, taking care always to keep this north pole of the globe pointing in the same direction, or to keep the globe itself in what we have termed a fixed attitude. As one half of the globe must always be in light, and the other half in darkness, this inclination from the perpendicular will bring the circle of light some distance beyond the north pole, when the globe is due south from the light, and will leave an equal space around the opposite pole without any light at all, or any light directly received. Now it is that what we have termed the fixed attitude of the globe begins to tell. If the north pole inclined towards the orbit facing the rim of the table, the light would still cut the poles, the days and nights would still be equal, and there would be no changes in the seasons, though there would be a rival revolution of the globe, by causing it to turn once a year, shifting the poles end for end. The inclination being to the surface of the table, or to the plane of the orbit, the phenomena that are known to exist are a consequence. Thus it is that the change in the seasons is as much owing to the fixed attitude of the earth in space, as we have chosen to term its polar directions, as to the inclination of its axis. Neither would produce the phenomena without the assistance of the other, as our experiment with the table will show.

Place, then, the globe at the south side of the rim of the table, with its axis inclining towards its surface, and its poles always pointing in the same general direction, not following the circuit of the orbit, and set it in motion towards the east, revolving rapidly on its axis as it moves. While directly south of the light, it would be found that the north pole would be illumi