40 VOYAGE INTO 



Yet this severe cold is not always, as is already mentioned ; 

 for if it were, how could any herbs grow there. 



Neither is there every year a constancy of winds or wea- 

 ther ruled by the moon, but an alteration, as in other places, 

 sometimes a milder, and sometimes a severer, winter. 



Skilful ship-masters and harpooncrs commend those years 

 for li'hale catching that have not many foggy and cloudy days. 

 Whether, according to the new and full moons, the spring- 

 tides happen, cannot be know^n. 



Such clear skies as we have sometimes in a summer's day, 

 with pleasant curled clouds, I have not seen at Spitzbergen ; 

 but, on the contrary, several dark and foggy ones. Rising 

 thunder-clouds I have not seen, nor ever heard of anybody 

 that had seen them. 



Above the ice the air appears white, from whence we know 

 where the firm or fixed ice lies, as I have before observed in 

 the chapter on ice. 



In the two last summer months, chiefly in July, before the 

 Weigatl, the sun shin'd so warm that the tarr of the ship, 

 between the searaes, where the wind could not come at it, 

 melted. 



There is hardly any difference of cold between night and 

 clay, yet at night, when the sun shineth, it seemeth to one 

 that rightly considereth it, as if it was only clear moonlight, 

 so that you may look upon the sun as well as you can upon 

 the moon ; so that thereby one may distinguish night and 

 day from each other. Increase of cold, and changing of the 

 compass, we did not observe as far as we w'cnt. It is also to 

 be observed that the frost does not let a dead body be con- 

 sumed easily in the ground, as is already observed in the 

 chapter of the description of Spitzhergcn. 



The 2nd day of August, in our voyage homeward, we ob- 

 served the sun first to set. 



Concerning the meteors generated in the air, I observed 

 the rime fell down, in the shape of small needles of snow, into 



