206 DESCKIPTION OF GREENLAMD. 



cinders from them into the sea to a distance of six leagues. 

 There is a probability that the ashes which came from these 

 rocks in Greenland proceeded from a like cause, and that 

 there are in this country burning mountains and subterrane- 

 ous fires, as in the Canaries and elsewhere. Doubtless this 

 may be the case, and is not inconsistent, judging from the 

 example, and, indeed, the proximity of Mount Hecla in Ice- 

 land, which is much more to the north than that part of 

 Greenland, as also from the instances of other volcanoes 

 which are in the higher parts of Laj)land and very far be- 

 yond the Arctic circle. The idea is confirmed also by what 

 we have remarked before in the old description of this land : 

 that there are baths there, so hot that they cannot be borne 

 even in winter. 



The summer of Greenland is always fine, day and night, 

 if the perpetual twilight which lasts the whole night in the 

 summer may be so called. As the days are very short in winter, 

 the nights, by way of compensation, are very long ; and nature 

 then produces such a wonder, that I should not have dared 

 to write it to you had it not been mentioned by the Icelandic 

 Chronicle as a miracle, and if I had not entire confidence in 

 M. Kcts, who read it to me and faithfully explained it. There 

 rises in Greenland a light with the night when the moon is 

 new, or on the point of becoming so, which lights up all the 

 country as if the moon were full, and the darker the night 

 the brighter this light shines. It takes its course on the north 

 coast, on account of which it is called the Northern Light. 

 It looks like flying fire, and stretches up into the sky like 

 a high and long palisade. It passes from one place to ano- 

 ther, and leaves smoke in the places it leaves. None but 

 those who have seen it could give any idea of the quickness 

 and agility of its movements; it lasts all night and disappears 

 at sunrise. I leave it to those learned men who are better 

 versed than I in natural philosophy to discover the cause of 

 this meteor, and whether there arises any vapour from the 



