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towards the sea measures about 500 feet, and I can scarcely 

 recall anything more trying to the nerves than an hour I once 

 spent on one of them while in solitary pursuit of a Bear, 

 whose footprints I had tracked in the snow. The vast per- 

 pendicular jfissures with their glistening sides of azure ice, 

 which one had to jump or climb across, were calculated to 

 suggest unpleasant ideas of the effect of a slip or a false 

 step ; and the terrific reports, like the booming of a thousand 

 cannon, made one fancy that the whole mass was being rent. 

 These glaciers are of great interest to the Geologist, giving 

 an idea of how England must have looked during the Glacial 

 Epoch; indeed the entire appearance of Spitbergen gives one 

 a very fair representation of the Glacial period which imme- 

 diately preceded our present one, when the whole of North 

 Europe, as far as 58° of north latitude, was more or less 

 entirely enveloped in ice. One's first impression on landing 

 in Spitzbergen is one of utter desolation — of bleak death ; 

 no blade of verdure gladdening the eye ; no sound of life 

 greets the ear ; all around is the silence of the tomb. One 

 might imagine oneself in an extinct world. It is only after a 

 close investigation that signs of vegetation can be detected — 

 here a hardy moss ; on the dark grey rocks a yellow lichen, 

 while nestled under some sheltering stone may be found the 

 downy Cerastium alpinum (Mountain Chickweed), or the tiny 

 bright yellowed Dry as odopetala (Mountain Avens) ; while in 

 favoured spots, frequented by seabirds, may be found the 

 Ranunculus, Cochlearia, several grasses, and occasionally the 

 Yellow Poppy {Papaver nudicale). The only plant at all ap- 

 proaching the character of a tree is the Salix reticulata, one 

 of the smallest of the Willow genus ; this tiny plant also 

 grows high up on the Alps, and I may here remark that while 

 plants collected at places just about the Arctic circle, such as 

 Hammerfest, North of Iceland, &c., will be found to corres- 

 pond with those just below the line of perpetual snow on the 

 Alps and Pyrenees, those found in Spitzbergen correspond 

 with Alpine plants alove that line. The remaining plants are 

 mostly of very minute size, and have to be very closely 

 searched for ; thus it was for a long time imagined that the 

 flora of Spitzbergen consisted only of mosses and about half 

 a dozen flowering plants, but this number has been gradually 

 increased by successful voyagers, until it has reached the 



