ao Pe ny Ay BU ERY Gt. Bi N. 
The fun, in the height of fummer, has at times heat enough to melt the 
tar on the decks of fhips. It fets no more after the third of May, O.S. Diftinc- 
tion of day and night is loft; unlefs it be fac&t what Fr. Marten alleges, that . 
during the fummer night of thefe countries, the fun appears with all the faint- 
nefs of the moon*. This is denied by Lord Mulgrave +. From Auguft the 
power of the fun declines, it fets faft; in September day is hardly diftinguifhable; 
and by the middle of Oéfober takes a long leave of this country; the bays be- 
come frozen ; and winter reigns triumphant. 
Nature, in the formation of thefe iflands, preferves the fame rule which fhe 
does in other places: the higheft mountains are on the weitern fide; and they 
gradually lower to theeaft. The altitude of the moft lofty which has been taken by 
Lord Mulgrave, feems to have been one a little to the north of Black Point, which 
was found by the megameter to be fifteen hundred and three yards { : that of a hill on 
the little ifle, the Norways, a {mall diftance to the north-eaft of Spitzbergen, was two 
thoufand four hundred feet : one on Vogel Sang, fixteen hundred and fifty; an- 
other, on the ifle near Cloven Cliff, in about Jat. 80, eight hundred and fixty- 
five; a third on that near Cook’s Hole, feven hundred and eleven ; and one on 
Hackluyt’s Iffand, only three hundred and twenty-one §. Thefe are the moft 
northern lands which ever were meafured ; and the experiments favor the fyftem 
of the decreafe of the heights of the mountains toward the poles. 
Earth and foil are denied to thofe dreadful regions : their compofition is ftone, 
formed by the fublime hand of Almighty Power; not frittered into fegments by 
fiffures, tranfverfe or perpendicular, but at once caft into one immenfe and folid 
‘mafs ; a mountain is but a fingle ftone throughout, deftitute of fiffures, except in 
places cracked by the refiftlefs power of froft, which often caufes lapfes, attend- 
ed with a noife like thunder, fcattering over their bafes rude and extenfive ruins. 
The ftone is granite, moftly grey and black ; fome red, white, and yellow. I 
ftrongly fufpect, that veins of iron are intermixed; for the meltings of the fnow 
tinge the rocks frequently with a ferruginous ochre. A potter’s clay and a gypfum 
are to be met with on the eaftern part of the iflands ||. 
The vallies, or rather glens, of this country, are filled with eternal ice or 
fnow ; are totally inaccefible, 2nd known only by the divided courfe of the 
mountains, or where they terminate in the fea in form Of a glaciere. No ftreams 
water thefe dreary bottoms; even fprings are denied ; and it is to the periodical 
* Marten, 48. + Poy. 71. t Phips Voy. 33. - § The fame, on tab. viii. 
}. Narrative of Four Ruffian failors, 78, 89. 
cataracts 
LXXXVII 
Day anv Nicnut. 
Mountains, 
VauLLigs, 
