Account of a Voyage to Splfjhergen. 145 



There are feveral rivulets and waterfalls of excellent water 

 fupplied by the melting of the fnow. I met frequently with, 

 fcurvv-grafs, wild celery, endive, water- crelTcs, and a few 

 other plants and flowers ; though the general vegetation 

 which covers the rocks confifts in various kinds of mofles 

 and ferns. There are while bears of an enormous fize, white 

 foxes, deer, and elks ; and above twenty different forts of 

 water and land birds ; fuch as, wild geefe, wild ducks, feat- 

 parrots, roches, fea-gulls, mallemooks as the failors call 

 them, whofe quills make the beft drawing pens I ever met 

 with, wild pigeons, the white duck with a beautiful fcarlet 

 head and yellow legs, and the fnow-bird,. whofe note is as 

 pleafmg as that of the bullfinch or nightingale. 



This feafon was the fineft ever remembered in thofe high 

 latitudes, and we had almoft conftant fine weather. As we 

 had room yet on board, and the feafon was not too far ad- 

 vanced, in hopes of killing a fifli or two more, we left Mag- 

 dalena Bay and fleered north. When we arrived in 80° we 

 found a perfe6lly clear ocean free from ice, but faw no 

 whales. 



We continued pufhing to the northward with fine foutherly 

 breezes and moft beautiful weather, and could, with a good 

 telefcope, difcover no ice to the northward, from the main- 

 top-mafl head, but a folid continent of ice eaft and weft ; \o 

 that we were in a kind of channel of perhaps three or four 

 leamics wide. We kept pudiing on, the captain and I jok- 

 ing together about palling through the pole. 



Both Captain Souter and myfelf found ourfclves at length 

 fome minutes north of 83^, where perhaps no man before 

 us had ever been, nor fince. The high fnowy mountains of 

 North Bank, or North Foreland, appeared very luminous, and 

 bore foulh on the compafs. 



We had a flrong inclination to pufli flill further north ; 

 but the danger of the eafl and weft ice, now to the fouthu ard 

 of us as well as to the northward, moving and locking us 

 in, in which cafe we muft have been belet and inevitably 



Vol. IV. L loft, 



