58 VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 



Ranunculus, Bryum, and a few others, of little or 

 no use in the medical world. 



On the west side of Spitzbergen there are some 

 safe harbours and roads for ships. The sea near 

 the shore is, for the most part, shallow, and the 

 bottom rocky ; but it often suddenly deepens to 

 some hundred fathoms, where the lead sinks in soft 

 mud, and sometimes mixed with shells. In Smee- 

 renberg, which has a sandy bottom, vessels may 

 ride in thirteen fathoms water not far from the 

 shore, where they are sheltered from all winds. 



The tide, from the number of islands through 

 which it passes, flows very irregularly, in some 

 places only three and four feet. 



Mr. Marten has affirmed, that the sun here, 

 at midnight, appears with all the faintness of the 

 moon ; but his assertion has not been corrobora- 

 ted by the experience of subsequent voyagers. 

 During my stay in this country, in 1806 and 

 1807, distinction between day and night was al- 

 most completely lost. Any perceptible difference 

 between the splendour and radiance of the mid-day 

 and mid-night sun, in clear weather, (if these ex- 

 pressions may be used,) arose only from a different 

 degree of altitude. Some of our most experienced 

 Greenland sailors, when called upon deck, have fre- 

 quently asked me whether it was day or night ; 



