130 THE OCEAN. 



Arctic Ocean in spring, and leave it at the ap- 

 proach of autumn; a winter residence there being 

 dreaded as one of the direst calamities that can befall 

 them ; and therefore, until lately, our knowledge 

 of winter phenomena was very meagre, and mainly 

 derived from the reports of a few unhappy men, by 

 accident compelled to remain in a clime so inhos- 

 pitable. By the experience of the officers and crews 

 engaged in the recent voyages of discovery, we have 

 become nearly as familiar with the phenomena of the 

 long winter's night, as with those of the short sum- 

 mer's day. In Spitzbergen the day is rather more 

 than four months long : the night is of the same 

 duration, and in the two months which intervene 

 between the sun's constant presence and his con- 

 stant absence, that luminary rises and sets as with 

 us. But the appearance of the sun in spring is ac- 

 celerated, and its disappearance in autumn retarded, 

 a few days, by the influence of refraction; so that 

 it is actually seen somewhat longer than it is in- 

 visible. Thus Captain Parry, at Melville Island, 

 saw the sun on the first of February, which was 

 about four days earlier than its actual elevation 

 above the horizon ; in like manner it remained 

 visible until the 11th of November, whereas it had 

 actually sunk beneath the horizon on tin' 7th. 

 Then the darkness of the Arctic winter is not 

 total and incessant; even in the depth of the 

 season, at Spitzbergen, there is a faint twilight 

 for six hours each day, and this is longer and 

 brighter in proportion to the distance from mid- 

 winter on either hand. The moon also shines in 



