272 THE WORLD OF ICE.

“Och! isn’t it a purty sight,” remarked O’Riley to
Mivins, “to see us all goin’ out like good little
childers to see the sun rise of a beautiful mornin’ like
this?”

“So it his,” answered Mivins; “but I wish it wasn’t
quite so cold.”

It was indeed cold—so cold that the men had to
beat their hands together, and stamp their feet, and
rush about like real children, in order to keep their
bodies warm. This month of February was the coldest
they had yet experienced. Several times the ther-
mometer fell to the unexampled temperature of 75°
below zero, or 107° below the freezing-point of water.
When we remind our young readers that the ther-
mometer in England seldom falls so low as zero,
except in what we term weather of the utmost
severity, they may imagine—or rather, they may
try to imagine—what 75° below zero must have
been.

It was not quite so cold as that upon this occa-
sion, otherwise the men could not have shown face
to it.

“TLet’s have leap-frog,” shouted Davie; “we can
jump along as well as walk along. Hooray! hay!”

The “hup ” was rather an exclamation of necessity
than of delight, inasmuch as that it was caused by
Davie coming suddenly down flat on the ice in the act
of vainly attempting to go leap-frog over Mivins’s head.

“That’s your sort,’ cried Amos Parr; “ down with
you, Buzzby.”