In the middle of the coast the doctor noticed a sort of plateau about two hundred feet in diameter; on three sides it was open to the bay; the fourth was enclosed by an elevation about a hundred and twenty feet high; this could be ascended only by steps cut in the ice. This seemed a proper place for a solid building, and it could be easily fortified; nature had adapted it for the purpose; it was only necessary to make use of the place. The doctor, Bell, and Johnson reached this place by means of steps cut in the ice. As soon as the doctor saw the excellence of the place, he determined to dig away the ten feet of hardened snow which covered it; the buildings had to be built on a solid foundation.
During Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, work went on without relaxation; at last the ground appeared; it consisted of a hard, dense granite, with the angles as sharp as glass; it contained, moreover, garnets and large crystals of feldspar, against which the pickaxe struck fire.
The doctor then gave them the dimensions and plan of the snow-house; it was to be forty feet long, twenty broad, and ten deep; it was divided into three rooms, a sitting-room, a bedroom, and a kitchen; more was not needed. To the left was the kitchen, to the right the bedroom, in the middle the sitting-room. For five days they worked busily. There was no lack of material; the ice walls were thick enough to resist thawing, for they could not risk being wholly without protection, even in summer. In proportion as the house rose, it became agreeable to see; there were four front windows, two in the sitting-room, one in the kitchen, another in the bedroom; for panes of glass they substituted large sheets of ice, in the Eskimo fashion, which served as well as unpolished glass for the passage of light. In front of the sitting-room, between two windows, there ran a long entry like a tunnel, which gave admission to the house; a solid door, brought from the Porpoise, closed it hermetically. When the house was finished, the doctor was delighted with his handiwork; it would have been impossible to say to what school of architecture the building belonged, although the architect would have avowed his preferences for the Saxon Gothic, so common in England; but the main point was, that it should be solid; therefore the doctor placed on the front short uprights; on top a sloping roof rested against the granite wall. This served to support the stovepipes, which carried the smoke away. When the task was completed, they began to arrange the interior. They carried into the bedroom the sleeping-accommodations from the Porpoise; they were arranged in a circle about a large stove. Benches, chairs, sofas, tables, wardrobes, were arranged in the sitting-room, which was also used as a dining-room; the kitchen received the cooking-stoves of the ship, and the various utensils. Sails, stretched on the floor, formed the carpet, and also served as hangings to the inner doors, which had no other way of closing. The walls of the house averaged five feet in thickness, and the recesses for the windows looked like embrasures in a fort. It was all built with great solidity; what more was to be desired? Ah, if they had listened to the doctor, there is no knowing what they would not have made of this ice and snow, which can be so easily manipulated! He all day long would ponder over plans which he never hoped to bring about, but he thereby lightened the dull work of all by the ingenuity of his suggestions. Besides, he had come across, in his wide reading, a rather rare book by one Kraft, entitled Detailed Description of the Snow-Palace Built at St. Petersburg, in January, 1740, and of All the Objects It Contained. The recollection of this book impressed him. One evening he gave his companions a full account of the wonders of that snow-palace.
“Why couldn’t we do here,” he asked, “what they did at St. Petersburg? What do we need? Nothing, not even imagination!”
“So it was very handsome?” said Johnson.
“It was fairy-like, my friend. The house, built by order of the Empress Anna, and in which she had celebrated the marriage of one of her buffoons in 1740, was nearly as large as ours; but in front stood six cannons of ice; they were often fired without bursting; there were also mortars to hold sixty-pound shells; so we could have some formidable artillery; the bronze is handy, and falls even from heaven. But the triumph of taste and art was on the front of the palace, which was adorned with handsome statues; the steps were garnished with vases of flowers of the same material; on the right stood an enormous elephant, who played water through his trunk by day, and burning naphtha by night. What a menagerie we might have if we only wanted to!”
“As for animals,” answered Johnson, “we shan’t lack them, I fancy, and they won’t be any the less interesting for not being made of ice.”
“Well,” said
