SPITZBERGEN. Ill 



a judicious stranger to undertake a passage in a boat 

 to the shore, from tlie belief that he was within a 

 league of the land. At this distance, the portions of 

 rock and patches of snow, as well as the contour of 

 the different hills, are as distinctly marked, as simi- 

 lar objects, in many other countries, not having 

 snow about them, would be at a fourth or a fifth part 

 of the same distance. Not, indeed, strangers only, 

 but persons who have been often to Spitzbergen, 

 such as the officers and seamen of the whale-ships, 

 have not unfrequently imagined, tliat their ship 

 could not stand an hour towards the land without 

 running aground ; and yet, perhaps, the ship has 

 sailed three or four hours directly " in shore," and 

 still been remote from danger. This is a fact which 

 I have seen realized among my own officers repeat- 

 edly. There are circumstances, indeed, when, by a 

 slight change in the density of the atmosphere, a 

 ship, after sailing towards the land for some hoiu's, 

 may appear to be as far off as at first. Thus, in 

 clear weather, the high land of Spitzbergen is per- 

 fectly well defined, and every thing on it appears 

 distinct, when at the distance of forty miles. If, 

 after sailing five hours towards the shore, from this 

 situation, at the rate of four or five knots per hour, 

 the atmosphere should become a little hazy, or even 

 only dark and cloudy, the land might appear to be 

 further distant than before. Hence we can account, 

 on a reasonable ground, for a curious circumstance 



