92 Observations on the Arctic Sea and Ice, and 



The second effect produced on the ice by the solar rays is 

 solution. When the sun has withdrawn his influence, and the 

 long winter night has spread its shades over the regions of the 

 north, all the dark domain is fettered in tenfold frost, — all is 

 silent and dead, — the torpid bear doses in his icy cave, — and 

 the stunted productions of the soil, shrivelled by the cold, shrink 

 into the earth beneath the cover of snow. Ocean is no more ; 

 and, except when the changing moon agitates the keen ether, 

 the forlorn scene is never ruffled by the gale. The thermometer, 

 which, during summer, ranged some ten degrees above the freez- 

 ing point, now sinks to 50° below zero ; and half a moon of such 

 intensity produces enough of ice to replace the whole dissolved 

 by the sun's rays. Indeed, that amounts to little ; as a thawing 

 temperature is felt only at intervals during a month or two in 

 summer, and can scarce effect the solution of the snow covering 

 the ice-field. 



The feeble action of the sun in thawing the polar ice, is abun- 

 dantly illustrated by the permanency of those ice-shoals which 

 have so long shut up the followers of Eric on the eastern shores 

 of Greenland, — ^by the annual augmentation of the polar gla- 

 ciers, reared in ravines on the shores of Spitzbergen, Beeren- 

 berg, and even the more southern coasts of Iceland and Cape 

 Farewell. 



The presence of these frigid accumulations in so low a lati- 

 tude, is apt to bias the judgment, leading to an inaccurate esti- 

 mate of the polar climate ; for if, during summer, in a latitude 

 so low as 60°, we find land surrounded by a frozen sea, hills 

 perpetually covered with snow, and valleys filled with solid ice, 

 what picture can our imagination form of those regions 600 

 leagues farther north ? None other surely, than that they are 

 in all probability ever in a frozen state. 



If, however, during a summer noon, we visit some sheltered 

 bay in Spitzbergen, whilst, through an unclouded atmosphere, 

 shine the bright beams of a never-setting sun, where the calm 

 ether leaves no impress on the- placid main, gently murmuring 

 along the shore, from which rises the earthy slope covered 

 with verdure, interspersed with flowers, watered by the stream- 

 let from the mountain rock, which echoes the uncouth screams 

 of myriads of the feathered tribes which annually nestle there, 



