As the season advanced, the idea of preserving more than the lives of his men was gradually abandoned by Gardiner; though Daggett still clung to his wreck, and actually had wood transported back to it, that he might stay as much as possible near his property.  There was no longer any thawing, though there were very material gradations in the intensity of the frosts.  Occasionally, it was quite possible to remain in the open air an hour or two at a time; then, again, there were days in which it exceeded the powers of human endurance to remain more than a few minutes removed to any distance from heat artificially procured.  On the whole, however, it was found that the comparatively moderate weather predominated; and it was rare indeed that all the people did not pursue their avocations and amusements outside, at what was called the middle of the day.

And what a meridian it was!  The shortest day had passed some time, when Roswell and Stimson were walking together on the terrace, then, as usual, as clear from snow as if swept by a broom; but otherwise wearing the aspect of interminable winter, in common with all around it.  They were conversing, as had been much their wont of late, and were watching the passage of the sun as he stole along the northern horizon; even at high noon rising but a very few degrees above it!

“It has a cold look, sir, but it does give out some heat,” said Stephen, as he faced the luminary, in one of his turns.  “I can feel a little warmth from it just now, sheltered us we are here under the cliffs, and with a back-ground of naked rock to throw back what reaches us.  To me, all these changes in the movements of the sun seem very strange, Captain Gar’ner; but I know I’m ignorant, and that others may well know all about what I do not understand.”

Here Gardiner undertook to explain the phenomena that have been slightly treated on in our own pages.  There are few Americans so ignorant as not to be fully aware that the sun has no sensible motion, or any motion that has an apparent influence on our own planet; but fewer still clearly comprehend the reasons of those very changes that are occurring constantly before their eyes.  We cannot say that Captain Gardiner succeeded very well in his undertaking, though he imprinted on the old boat-steerer’s mind the fact that the sun would not be seen at all were they only a few degrees farther south than they actually were.

“And now, sir, I suppose he’ll get higher and higher every day,” put in Stephen, “until he comes quite up above our heads?”

“Not exactly that at noon; though abeam, as it might be, mornings and evenings.”

“Still, the coldest of our weather is yet to come, or I have no exper’ence in such things.  Why does not the heat come back with the sun—­or what seems to be the sun coming back? though, as you tell me, Captain Gar’ner, it’s only the ’arth sheering this-a-way and that-a-way in her course.”