172 SUMMER DAY AND WINTER NIGHT. 



scribe an almost unbroken circle in the sky for many 

 days and nights, and had we been a few degrees 

 further north we should have seen it describe an 

 entire circle. As it was, it only disappeared for 

 twenty minutes. It set about midnight, and in 

 twenty minutes it rose again so that there was no 

 night, not even twilight, but a bright, beautiful 

 blazing day, for several weeks together. 



Dr. Kane describes the midnight sun thus : " On 

 our road we were favoured with a gorgeous spectacle, 

 which hardly any excitement of peril could have 

 made us overlook. The midnight sun came out 

 over the northern crest of the great berg, our late 

 ' fast friend,' kindling variously-coloured fires on 

 every part of its surface, and making the ice around 

 us one great resplendency of gem -work blazing 

 carbuncles and rubies, and molten gold." 



Very different indeed is the aspect of the winter 

 night. Let the same authority speak, for he had 

 great experience thereof. 



On December 15th he writes : " We have lost the 

 last vestige of our mid-day twilight. We cannot see 

 print, and hardly paper. The fingers cannot be 

 counted a foot from the eyes. Noonday and mid- 

 night are alike; and, except a vague glimmer on the 

 sky, that seems to define the hill-outlines to the 

 south, we have nothing to tell us that this arctic 

 world of ours has a sun. In one week more we 

 shall reach the midnight of the year 



"The influence of this long intense darkness was 



