326 HON. CAPTAIN PHIPPS. 



a.d. both these preventives, and so escaped the ravages 

 of that dreadful malady. Hence we may infer 

 the propriety, nay the necessity, of giving oc- 

 cupation both to the mind and body of persons, 

 whose fate it may be to pass a long and dreary 

 winter in a climate unusually severe. 



Captain Phipps, in concluding his journal ob- 

 serves, that he perceived no minerals of any kind 

 on that part of Spitzbergen which he visited, nor 

 were there any appearances of active or extinct 

 volcanoes. There were no rivers or springs, but 

 the fresh water, which was always found in great 

 abundance, was produced by the melting of snow. 

 There was no thunder or lightning whilst he was 

 upon the coast ; and the sky was in general loaded 

 with hard white clouds, so that he does not 

 remember to have seen the seas and the horizon 

 both free from them even in the clearest weather. 

 The drift-wood, which from very early times has 

 given rise to various conjectures as to the place 

 of its growth, was, with the exception of the 

 pipe-staves discovered upon the low island by 

 Dr. Irving, all fir, and not perforated by the 

 worm, but he had no opportunity of ascertaining 

 from whence it had drifted. 



He next remarks upon the nature of the ice 

 which he saw, and from his description of it, as 

 well as from that given by Captain Lutwidge of 



