THE SUN'S POWER AT SPITZBERGEX. 267 



pletely lost; any perceptible difference between the splendour 

 and radiance of the midday and midnight sun in clear weather 

 arose only from a different degree of altitude, and some of 

 our most experienced Greenland sailors, when called upon 

 deck, have frequently asked me whether it was day or night." ' 



In Spitzbergen, and these far northern latitudes how- 

 ever, as we have already had occasion to remark, the 

 power of the rays of the noon-day sun is often remark- 

 able, for Captain Scoresby, a keen and accurate ob- 

 server proceeds to point out that 



" where they fall upon the snow-clad surface of the ice or 

 land, they are in a great measure reflected, without producing 

 any elevation of temperature; but where they impinge on the 

 black exterior of a ship, the pitch on one side occasionally 

 becomes fluid, while ice is generated on the other. A ther- 

 mometer placed on the black paint, on which the sun shines, 

 indicates a temperature of 800 or 900, or even more, while on 

 the opposite side, a cold of 20 is sometimes found to pre- 

 vail." " This remarkable force of the sun's rays is accompanied 

 by a corresponding intensity of light. A person placed in the 

 centre of a field, or other compact body of ice, under a 

 cloudless atmosphere and elevated sun, experiences such an 

 extraordinary intensity of light, that if it be encountered for 

 any length of time, it is not only productive of a most pain- 

 ful sensation in the eyes, but sometimes of temporary and 

 even, I have heard, of permanent blindness." f 



These and similar facts respecting the power of the 

 sun's rays during the polar summer, are so well estab- 

 lished by the unanimous testimony of those who have 

 visited these regions, that we deem it unnecessary to 



* A Voyage to Spitzbergen, by John Laing, Surgeon, 2nd Edition, 1 8 1 8, 



P- 59- 



f The Arctic Regions, their Appearance, Climate, Zoology, etc. by Capt. 

 Wm. Scoresby, 1849, p. 115. 



