34 



ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



centric outline to the crumbling away and weather- 

 ing of great beds of conglomerate and brecchia. 



Whether it is that the paucity of objects for ob- 

 servation induces attention to such as are seen, or 

 that the cold air sharpens men's wits, voyagers to 

 the Arctic seas, not being professed naturalists, have 

 paid much more attention to the animals which 

 inhabit them, and described those they have met 

 with much more intelligibly than travellers in 

 warmer and more favoured climates. Most of the 

 writers on northern latitudes give some account of 

 their natural history. In the region under review, 

 the early adventurers in the whale fisheries did not 

 omit to observe, with considerable care, the charac- 

 ters, differences, and habits of the animals they pur- 

 sued, and, at the same time, were not so blinded by 

 the magnitude of their prey as to pass without 

 notice some of the more striking among the minute 

 organisms vivifying the polar waters. Among other 

 places, Spitzbergen, the delineation of the fauna 

 of which is of great consequence in the history 

 of the European Arctic region, since it is clearly 

 the part of it where we should expect to meet with 

 the type of that fauna, has fortunately not been 

 neglected. In the expedition towards the North 

 Pole, undertaken in 1773, under the charge of 

 Captain Phipps, important data for the determi- 

 nation of the natural history of Spitzbergen were 

 collected, not at hazard, but with evident judgment, 

 and a clear understanding of their value. These 



