32 SPITSBERGEN 



Scoresby the younger, whose Arctic Regions is the best 

 book ever written on the northern seas. Sent by his 

 father to Edinburgh University where he studied 

 almost every branch of natural and physical science, he 

 was thoroughly equipped for his task, and his practical 

 experience as a whaling captain and trained observer 

 stood him in such stead that his book is still the basis 

 of all scientific Polar research. His description of the 

 Spitsbergen coast as seen from a ship is as faithful to- 

 day as when he wrote it. " Spitsbergen and its islands, 

 with some other countries within the Arctic Circle, 

 exhibit a kind of scenery which is altogether novel. 

 The principal objects which strike the eye are innumer- 

 able mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles, 

 rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of 

 3000 or 4000 feet, the colour of which, at a moderate 

 distance, appears to be blackish shades of brown, green, 

 grey and purple ; snow or ice, in strias or patches, 

 occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of 

 the hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and 

 filling with extended beds the most considerable valleys ; 

 and ice of the glacier form, occurring at intervals all 

 along the coast, in particular situations as already de- 

 scribed, in prodigious accumulations. The glistening or 

 vitreous appearance of the icy precipices ; the purity, 

 whiteness, and beauty of the sloping expanse formed 

 by their snowy surfaces ; the gloomy shade presented 

 by the adjoining or intermixed mountains and rocks, 

 perpetually covered with a mourning veil of black 

 lichens, with the sudden transitions into a robe of 

 purest white, where patches or beds of snow occur, 

 present a variety and extent of contrast altogether 



