ZEbe dDttmigbt Sun 79 



broken up into light clouds ; the icebergs lie thick 

 about us ; the dark headlands stand boldly out 

 against the sky ; and the clouds and sea and bergs 

 and mountains are bathed in an atmosphere of 

 crimson and gold and purple most singularly beauti- 

 ful." 



That was written at the beginning of August, 1860, 

 and he says further of that midnight sun scene : 

 " The air was warm almost as a summer's night at 

 home, and yet there were the icebergs and the bleak 

 mountains, with which the fancy, in this land of green 

 hills and waving forests, can associate nothing but 

 cold repulsiveness. The sky was bright and soft and 

 strangely inspiring as the skies of Italy. The bergs 

 had wholly lost their chilly aspect, and, glittering in 

 the blaze of the brilliant heavens, seemed, in the 

 distance, like masses of burnished metal or solid flame. 

 Nearer at hand they were huge blocks of Parian 

 marble, inlaid with mammoth gems of pearl and opal. 

 One in particular exhibited the perfection of the 

 grand. Its form was not unlike that of the Coliseum, 

 and it lay so far away that half its height was buried 

 beneath the line of blood-red waters. The sun, slowly 

 rolling along the horizon, passed behind it, and it 

 seemed as if the old Roman ruin had suddenly taken 

 fire." 



Dr. Hayes' book, may I add, was a personal record 

 of the events of the expedition which he conducted to 

 the Arctic Seas to augment the proofs of the deductions 

 of many physicists that the sea about the North Pole 

 could not be frozen. He had previously acted as 

 surgeon of the expedition commanded by Dr. Kane, 

 of the United States Navy. Both Kane's and Hayes' 



