458 incandescent coal through it. It looks as if a piece of the iron might drop away before very long. I wonder whether it will last another month, and what will be done for fire in the cabin after this stove goes to pieces. And there are at least five months more of hard winter ahead of us, fully seven months before the ice is at all likely to go out of the bay, eight or nine months before the vessel can reach Temper- ate latitudes where a fire is not need- ed all the time. Although H.C.P. knew that this stove was cracked he would not buy it as a precaun- timary measure the stove that I bought up from Sydney, when I offered it to him tentatively on the northward voyage! What a mean! 8 December. Wednesday. Clear, calm night. Overcast this mom