SPITZBERGEN. — EXCURSION ON SHORE. 123 



are not impervious to moisture, the effect is such as 

 might be expected ; but how frost cau operate in 

 this way on quartz, is not so easily understood. 



As we completed the arduous ascent, the sun 

 had just reached the meridi;in below the Pole, and 

 still shed his reviving rays of unimpaired brilliancy 

 on a small surface of snow which capped the moun- 

 tain's summit. A thermometer placed among stones 

 in the shade of the brow of the hill, indicated a 

 temperature as high as 37°. At the top of the first 

 hill, the temperature was 42° ; and at the foot, on 

 the plain, 44° to 46° : so that, at the very peak of 

 the mountain, estimated at 3000 feet elevation, the 

 power of the sun, at midnight, produced a tempera- 

 ture several degrees above the freezing point, and 

 occasioned the discharge of streams of water from 

 the snow-capped summit. 



It may appear a little remarkable^ that an effect 

 of cold, amounting to perpetvial frost, that is ob- 

 served in elevated situations, in temperate, and even 

 in hot climates, does not occur on the tops of consi- 

 derable mountains in Spitzbergen : and it is really 

 extraordinary, that inferior mountains, such as Ben 

 Nevis, in Scotland, the elevation of which is only 

 about 4380 feet, should sometimes exhibit a crest of 

 snow throughout the year; while, in Spitzbergen, 

 where the mean annual temperature is about 30° lower 

 than in Scotland, and the mountains little inferior 

 in elevation, tlie snow should sometimes be wholly 



