Vlll INTRODUCTION. 



most graphic account of Spitzbergen and the sur- 

 rounding seas. In this book are many excellent 

 remarks on the animal productions of this inhospitable 

 land, with some admirable views and sketches. In 

 the appendix to this edition of Martens', some valu- 

 able extracts from this work are included in the list 

 of the animals. The following descriptive extract 

 from Admiral Beechey's volume, conveys a striking 

 picture of a fine summer day in these generally wintry 

 climes. The voyage of the Dorothea and Trent was 

 not more successful than that of the Racehorse and 

 Carcass forty-five years before ; but it served, at all 

 events, as the nursery of three great Arctic explorers, 

 — the lamented Franklin, and the present Admirals 

 F. W. Beechey and Sir G. Back ; while it afforded 

 a subject for one of the most pleasing of all the Arctic 

 narratives, the book from which the following interest- 

 ing extract is derived. 



" In cloudy or misty weather, when the hills are 

 clothed with newly-fallen snow, nothing can be more 

 dreary than the appearance of the shores of Spitzber- 

 gen ; whereas, on the contrary, it is scarcely possible 

 to conceive a more brilliant and lively effect than that 

 which occurs on a fine day, when the sun shines forth 

 and blends its rays with that peculiarly soft, bright 

 atmosphere which overhangs a country deeply bedded 

 in snow ; and with a pure sky, whose azure hue is so 

 intense as to find no parallel in nature. On such an 

 occasion the winds, near the land at least, are very 

 liglit, or entirely hushed, and the shores teem with 

 living objects. All nature seems to acknowledge the 



