1 62 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [X. 



From causes similar (though of less efficacy, in con- 

 sequence of the smaller area occupied by water) to thos'e 

 which originally gave birth to the ascending energy of the 

 Antarctic waters, a gelid current is also generated in the Arc- 

 tic Ocean, which, descending in a south-westerly direction, 

 encounters the' already faltering Gulf Stream in the space 

 between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. A contest for 

 the mastery ensues, which is eventually terminated by a 

 compromise. The warmer stream, no longer quite able to 

 hold its own, splits into two branches, the one squeezing 

 itself round the North Cape, as far as that Varangar Fiord 

 which Russia is supposed so much to covet, while the other 

 is pushed up in a more northerly direction along the west 

 coast of Spitzbergen. But although it has power to split up 

 the Gulf Stream for a certain distance, the Arctic current is 

 ultimately unable to cut across it, and the result is an accumu- 

 lation of ice to the south of Spitzbergen in the angle formed 

 by the bifurcation, as Mr. Grote would call it, of the warmer 

 current. 



It is quite possible, therefore, that the north-west extre- 

 mity of Spitzbergen may be comparatively clear, while the 

 whole of its southern coasts are enveloped in belts of ice 

 of enormous extent. It was on this contingency that we 

 built our hopes, and determined to prosecute our voyage, 

 in spite of the discouraging report of the Norse skipper. 



About eight o'clock in the evening we got under way 

 from Hammerfest ; unfortunately the wind almost immedi- 

 ately after fell dead calm, and during the whole night we 

 lay " like a painted ship upon a painted ocean." At six 

 o'clock a little breeze sprang up, and when we came on 

 deck at breakfast time, the schooner was skimming at the 

 rate of five knots an hour over the level lanes of water, 

 which lie between the silver-grey ridges of gneiss and mica 

 slate that hem in the Nordland shore. The distance from 

 Hammerfest to Alten is about forty miles, along a zigzag 

 chain of fiords. It was six o'clock in the evening, and we had 

 already sailed two-and-thirty miles, when it again fell almost 



