/2 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



chaos, or striking them far into the abyss. And as for 

 what may be dimly distinguished to be land, rimming 

 with its precipitous coasts these dreary waters, it may be 

 most fitly described in the lines in which the poet has 

 pictured one of the regions of the nether world. 



" Beyond this flood, a frozen continent 

 Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms 

 Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land 

 Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems 

 Of ancient pile ; or else deep snow and ice." 



Almost the only vegetation that springs from this frost- 

 bound soil is a scanty verdure, formed of mosses, lichens, 

 and other low plants, that conceal themselves beneath 

 the snow. At the farthest limit to which adventure has 

 pierced, a night of four months' duration closes each 

 dismal year ; throughout which human life has indeed 

 been sustained by individuals previously inured to a se- 

 vere climate, but the horrors of which have, in most of 

 the instances in which the dreadful experiment has been 

 either voluntarily or involuntarily tried by the natives of 

 more temperate regions, only driven the wretched suf- 

 ferers through a succession of the intensest bodily and 

 mental tortures, and then laid them at rest in the sleep 

 of death. 



The Dutch writers mention many dreadful ship- 

 wrecks, of which I shall relate a few, from a contem- 

 porary author.* 



Didier Albert Raven, in 1639, when on the border of 

 the Spitzbergen ice, was assailed by a furious tempest. 

 Though the ship was violently agitated, he succeeded in 

 steering her clear of the great bank, and thought himself 

 in comparative safety, when there appeared before him 



* " Kdin. Cabinet Library." Vol. on the Polar Regions. 



