200 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Lif 



magic light; its rosy pathway enticing our willing feet to 

 ascend towards those lustrous hopes which tower before us, 

 glowing and glistening under radiant skies, and which seem 

 to offer an infinitude of abiding ambrosial joy. But oh how 

 soon that lovely view is changed ! Not through the glistering 

 magical illusion of fancy's rays may mortals long behold it. 

 For soon the clearer, stronger, though, alas ! the sadder light 

 of truth flashes its keen shafts adown the heights of time upon 

 all that fairy scene, revealing reality ; and amidst the tempest 

 of our tears we behold all our enchanted forms, celestial vistas, 

 and gorgeous illusions crumbling, receding, and giving place to 

 these chilling, hard, and rugged facts which coarsely now 

 project themselves to disappointment's eye. We need to 

 adumbrate a transformation scene like this, for words alone will 

 not describe it. It is the commencement of the summer, and 

 we gaze on the ocean which washes the Spitzbergen coast. In 

 this light this Arctic desert is imposing, grand, majestic. The 

 outlines of the coast and of the icebergs are of the most 

 fantastic and often of the most beautiful character old ruined 

 keeps of Norman castles, long lines of frowning battlements, 

 minarets and domes of Moorish mosques, and the tapering 

 spires, arched roofs, and flying buttresses of mediaeval cathedrals. 

 Lit up by the radiance of an Arctic sun, they wear a most 

 singular and weird beauty. Over the frozen ocean stand 

 monuments of fantastic design, where radiant glittering surfaces 

 reflect in changing lights of amethyst, azure, vermilion, gold, 

 and emerald, the wondrous fires of the northern Auroras. But 

 the glory is transient. The summer sun has dawned. He 

 darts obliquely his rays upon all this scene, and then all this 

 crust splits up and becomes dislocated ; the gorgeous illusion is 

 ended, the confusion spreads; the ocean-currents carry off to 

 sea the blocks and floes of ice which roll and glide, and cross 

 and chase each other, hurtling together in an indescribable 

 mele'e and with a fearful tempest of sounds. The illusion 

 alone remains. D. 



The Improvident Life. 



The Eskimos inhabit the immense icy plains which extend 

 into America even beyond the Polar circle. During the winter 



