This entry contains remarks related to the following subject: Aurora

Published Journals of George W. DeLong

See full digitized page provided by the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Excerpt:

A stormy day with a southeasterly gale. At midnight light airs came up from the northward, and 
a faint radial display of the aurora in the N.W., from which I anticipate an increase of barometric 
pressure, and a fall of temperature tomorrow. During the day and until the wind went to the northward, 
snow fell. We have not had thus far any unusually heavy snow-storm, but these high winds blow the 
snow that does fall up into drifts, through which we unexpectedly flounder over knee deep. We do not 
seem to be affected, as far as the ship is concerned, by these high winds; she heels steadily 5° to 
starboard, and occasionally changes her head a point either way, but that is of course due to a motion of 
the entire floe in azimuth. Beyond an occasional trembling as a sudden gust strikes her, the ship is as 
steady as if she were in a dry dock, shored up; and whatever pressure may be exerted on the edges of 
our floe, it does not extend to our position within it. What were leads behind and ahead of us when we 
first pushed the ship in here have long since frozen over and have been covered with snow, and we 
detect them in high temperatures, say 30°, by sinking through the snow to the sludgy ice beneath and 
seeing water ooze up from its partially thawing surface.

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Jeannette Ship's Journal

See digitized manuscript page provided by NOAA PMEL.