Such are part of the wonderful phenomena of the polar regions. There are other curious particulars, which, with some reflections suitable to the subject, we shall reserve for our next paper; concluding this with part of Thomson's magnificent description of the icy regions:

The Muse

Thence sweeps the howling margin of the main;
Where undissolving, from the first of time,
Snows swell on snows amazing to the sky;
And icy mountains high on mountains piled,
Seem to the shivering sailor from afar,
Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds.
Projected huge, and horrid, o'er the surge,
Alps frown on Alps; or rushing hideous down,
As if old Chaos was again returned,
Wide-rend the deep, and shake the solid pole.
Ocean itself no longer can resist
The binding fury; but, in all its rage
Of tempest taken by the boundless frost,
Is many a fathom to the bottom chained,
And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse,
Shagged o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void
Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they!
Who here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun:
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost,
The long, long night incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's fate,
As with first prow (what have not Britons dared!)
He for the passage sought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate sealed, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.

* Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth, to discover the north-east passage.

No. V.

FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON THE POLAR
WINTER.

Vast regions dreary, bleak, and bare!
There on an icy mountain's height,
Seen only by the Moon's pale light,
Stern Winter rears his giant form,
His robe a mist, his voice a storm:
His frown the shiv'ring nations fly,
And, hid for half the year, in smoky caverns lie.

JOHN SCOTT.

IN the preceding paper, we described the picturesque appearances of the ice in the dreary regions of Spitzbergen. The snow, moreover, in those high latitudes, exhibits phenomena not less singular than those of the ice. At first, it appears small and hard as the finest sand; it then changes its form to that of a hexagonal shield, into the shape of needles, crosses, cinquefoils, and stars, some plain, and some serrated rays. These forms depend upon the disposition of the atmosphere ; and in calm weather, the snow coalesces, and falls in clusters.

The single night of this dreadful country begins about the 30th of October: the Sun then sets, and never appears till about the 10th of February. A glimmering, indeed, continues some weeks after the setting of the Sun: then succeed clouds and thick darkness, broken by the light of the Moon, which is as luminous as in England, and, during this long night, shines with unfailing lustre. The cold strengthens with the new year; and the Sun is ushered in with an unusual severity of frost. By the middle of March, the cheerful light grows strong; the arctic foxes leave their holes; and the sea-fowl resort, in great multitudes, to their breeding places. The Sun sets no more after the 14th of May; the distinction of day and night is then lost.

In the height of summer, the Sun has heat enough to melt the tar on the decks of ships; but from August its power declines: it sets fast. After the middle of September, day is hardly distinguishable, and, by the end of October, takes a long farewell of this country: the days now become frozen, and winter reigns triumphant.

Earth and soil are denied to the frozen regions of Spitzbergen: at least, the only thing which resembles soil, is the grit worn from the mountains by the power of the winds, or the attrition of cataracts of melted snow: this, indeed, is assisted by the putrefied lichens of the rocks, and the dung of birds, brought down by the same means. The composition of these islands is stone, formed by the sublime hand of omnipotent Power; not fritted into segments, transverse or perpendicular, but cast, at once, into one immense and solid mass. A mountain, throughout, is but a single stone, destitute of fissures, except in places cracked by the irresistible power of frost, which often causes lapses, attended by a noise like thunder, and scattering over their bases rude and extensive ruins.

The vallies, or rather glens, of this country, are filled with eternal ice or snow. They are totally inaccessible, and known only by the divided course of the mountains, or where they terminate in the icebergs or glaciers we have already described. No streams water their dreary bottoms; and even springs are denied. The mariners are indebted for fresh water solely to the periodical cataracts of melted snow in the short season of summer, or to pools in the the middle of the vast fields of ice.

Yet, even here, Flora deigns to make a short visit, and to scatter a scanty stock over the bases of the hills: her efforts never rise beyond a few humble herbs, which shoot, flower, and seed, in the short warmth of June and July, and then wither into rest until the succeeding year. Among these, however, the salubrious scurvygrass, the resource of distempered frames, is providentially most abundant.

Such, after all, is the aspect of extreme sterility and desolation in these dreary regions, that we can scarcely imagine any mortal would be so hardy as to make them even a temporary abode. Yet here did four Russian mariners, who were accidentally left on this frozen coast in the year 1743, live six years (one excepted), till happily released by the arrival of a ship. In 1633, seven Dutch sailors were voluntarily left here to pass the winter, and to make their remarks; but they all perished from the effects of the scurvy. In the following year, seven more self-devoted victims of the same nation underwent a similar fate; yet all these adventurous men had been liberally provided with medicines, and every necessary for the preservation of life. Eight Englishmen, left by accident in the same country, in 1650, were far more fortunate: unprovided with every thing, they contrived, however, to frame a hut of some old materials, and were found by the returning ships, the next year in perfect health. The Russians have attempted to colonize these dreadful islands. They have annually sent parties to continue there the whole year, who have established settlements at Spitzbergen and other places adjacent, where they have built huts, each of which is occupied by two boats' crews, or twenty-six men,

They bring with them salted fish, rye-flour, and the serum or whey of sour milk. The whey is their chief beverage, and is also used in baking their bread. Each hut has an oven, which serves also as a stove; and their fuel is wood, which they bring with them from Archangel. Their huts are above ground, and surprisingly warm. They boil their fish with water and rye-meal: this is their winter diet. In summer, they live chiefly on fowls, or their eggs. They are dressed in the skins of the bear or the reindeer, with the fur side next their bodies; their bedding, likewise, is formed of the same. The skin of the fox, which is the most valuable, is preserved as an article of commerce. They have also other employment beside the chase, in catching, with nets, the beluga, or white whale. Few of them die from the severity of the cold; but they are often frost-bitten, so as to lose their toes or fingers; for they are so hardy as to hunt in all weathers. They are at liberty to leave the place by the 22d of September, whether they are relieved by a fresh party from Russia, or not. The great exercise they use; their vegetable food; their method of freshening their salt provision, by boiling it in water, and mixing it with flour; their beverage of whey; and their total abstinence from spirituous liquors; are the happy preservatives from the scurvy, which brought all the preceding adventurers, who perished, to their miserable end.

Where the countries have been long inhabited, in all the arctic coasts of Europe, Asia, and America, the natives, with very few variations and exceptions, seem to be a distinct species both in body and mind, and not to be derived from the adjacent nations, or any of their better proportioned neighbours. Their stature is from four to four feet and a half; their skins swarthy, and their

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