S4. ACCOUNT OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



This country exhibits many interesting views^ 

 with numerous examples of the sublime. Its stu- 

 pendous hills rising by steep acclivities from the very 

 margin of the ocean to an immense height ; its 

 surface, contrasting the native protruding dark-co- 

 loured rocks, with the burden of purest snow and 

 magnificent ices, altogether constitute an extraor^ 

 dinary and beautiful picture. 



The whole of the western coast is mountainous 

 and picturesque ; and though it is shone upon by a 

 four months' sun every year, its snowy covering is 

 never wholly dissolved, nor are its icy monuments 

 of the dominion of frost ever removed The val- 

 leys opening towards the coast, and terminating in 

 the back ground with a transverse chain of moun-^ 

 tains, are chiefly filled with everlasting ice. The 

 inland valleys, at all seasons, present a smooth and 

 continued bed of snow, in some places divided by 

 considerable rivulets, but in others exhibiting a 

 pure unbroken surface for many leagues in extent. 

 Along the west coast, the mountains take their 

 rise from within a league of the sea, and some fi'om 

 its very edge. Few tracts of table-land of more than 

 a league in breadth are to be seen, and in many 

 places the blunt termination of mountain-ridges 

 project beyond the regular line of the coast, and 

 overhang the waters of the ocean. The southern 

 part of Spitzbergen consists of groups of insulated 

 mountains, little disposed in chains, or in any de- 

 terminate order, ha^ ing conical, pyramidal, or ridged 



