VON BUCH ON BEAR ISLAND. 49 



winter, before they can be again brought off. It would not seem very 

 probable that naturalists should visit such an inhospitable island, or 

 remain long enough to observe its internal structure, and there is not 

 much probability of such visits being often repeated. Yet it has oc- 

 curred, and this investigation, which as yet is almost unknown, has 

 produced some facts of very great importance for geology. 



The Burgomaster of Burtscheidt near Aachen, M. Barto von Lo- 

 venigh, resolved in July 1827 to undertake a pleasure-trip to Spitz- 

 bergen. On reaching Hammerfest he hired from a Russian merchant 

 a sloop adapted to the voyage, with the proper crew ; and took 

 the Norwegian naturalist Keilhau, who happened to be then in 

 Hammerfest, along with him to Spitzbergen. Both travellers have 

 published their observations; but M.von Lovenigh has less attempted 

 to describe what he saw, than to express, chiefly in verse, the feelings 

 excited in him by the surrounding icy scenery. Keilhau' s observations 

 are of more value, and in all respects worthy of an experienced natu- 

 ralist. They form a considerable part of his comprehensive work on 

 the physical relations of the northern part of Lapland. But an un- 

 fortunate accident has caused the almost total destruction of this work, 

 printed at Christiana in 1831, so that it has been seen by very few 

 persons, and hence Keilhau' s discoveries in Bear Island and Spitz- 

 bergen have excited almost no attention. Convinced, that since the 

 no less admirable than important researches of Murchison and the 

 Russian geologists in the Russian empire, every geological observation 

 in the regions that encompass the North Pole must have an essential 

 influence in developing the laws according to which the surface of the 

 earth has been formed, I attempted during my visit to Christiana in 

 July 1844 to procure Keilhau' s book, and succeeded, through the 

 kindness of the author, in obtaining one of the very few copies which 

 alone remain of the whole edition. 



M. Keilhau has likewise placed in the Museum of the University at 

 Christiana a very instructive and beautiful collection from Bear Island, 

 and accompanied each specimen with many very acute remarks. I am 

 thus enabled to add something, not foiuid in the book, to Keilhau' s 

 observations ; especially the determination of the many beautiful petri- 

 factions collected on Beat Island, among which one of the largest and 

 most beautiful Spirifers is certainly not unworthy to bear the name 

 of its discoverer. 



*'0n the 1 6th August 1 827," says Keilhau, " about two in the morn- 

 ing, we left Hammerfest, and on the 1 9 th at mid-day came in sight of 

 Bear Island. We ran along the coast on the east side to the so-called 

 Nordhafen. The land rose steep from the shore to 50 or 150 feet 

 high, and then spread out flat like a table, far into the interior. We 

 went on shore with the boat and provisions for three or four days, at 

 Nordhafen, whilst the ship cruised about in the open sea. Not far 

 from the shore is a well-built house, containing a good room for living 

 in, and a store for provisions. It was erected in 1822 by some mer- 

 chants from Hammerfest, and ever since, each ship that visits the 

 island leaves some provisions in the house for those who may be com- 



