DKSf'RIPTION OF GRKKNL.VND. 233 



peace of those two countries, and which our ilhistrious ambas- 

 sador so gloriously achieved. Here met the two first men of 

 the nortli, the Grand jMaster of Denmark, of whom I am 

 speaking, and the high chancellor of Sweden. They looked 

 upon each other with pride and veneration. The work was 

 one fully worthy of our ambassador, who is truly called 

 Extraordinary, which, in making peace between these two 

 nations, cemented the friendship of two such great men. I 

 hope to speak on another occasion of the High Chancellor 

 of Sweden, and do not intend in this place to write a pane- 

 gyric on the Grand Master of Denmark ; but shall content 

 myself vv-ith saying, that when you have seen this great 

 minister, you will be able to judge of his heart, which is so 

 noble, of his mind, Avhich is so refined, and of his mien, 

 which is so high that he can not only support crowns by his 

 counsel, but has also a head to carry on this mighty empire. 

 Add to all these heroic virtues that he is an accomplished 

 philosopher, neither fond of vanity nor ostentation, a man of 

 the most generous sentiments, and most instructive in his 

 conversation. 



His Excellency had in his service a Spanish gentleman 

 named Leonin, a naturalist, of a learned and inquiring mind, 

 whom he sent to Spitzbergen, that he might hear from him 

 on his return what he saw and heard. The report he 

 made is briefly this. The country is in the seventy-eighth 

 degree of elevation, and rightly called Spitzbergen, on ac- 

 count of the pointed mountains which are, so to speak, sown 

 or planted upon it. These mountains are composed of gravel 

 and little flat stones, like small pieces of grey slate, one on 

 the top of the other ; they are formed of these little stones 

 and of the gravel which the wind collects together, or which 

 the vapours bring with them. They grow perceptibly, and 

 the sailors every year find new ones. Leonin went pretty 

 far into the country, and only found this kind of pointed 

 mountahis, with which the country was covered, and met 



