PROF. MARTINS : VEGETATION OF SPITZBERGEN 103 



The Archipelago of Spitzhergen is composed of one principal island 

 which gives its name to the whole group, and of two other large islands, the 

 smaller one to the south, the larger one to the north. Prince Charles' 

 Island is situated on the western coast, and a chain of little islets called the 

 Seven Isles, stretches away directly towards the pole. Table Island is the 

 last rock which raises its head out of the glacial sea. 



I. CLIMATE OF SPITZBERGEN. 



When we recollect that in Spitzbergen the sun's altitude never exceeds 

 57° even in the most southerly parts ; that his oblique rays, traversing an 

 enormous thickness of the atmosphere, do not reach the ground until they 

 have lost nearly all their heat, and only graze, so to speak, the surface of the soil, 

 instead of striking it perpendicularly, as in warmer countries j if in addition 

 to this we reflect, that this luminary is totally invisible from the 26th of 

 October to the 16th of February, a night of four months duration thus 

 enveloping this glacial land ; and further, that during the one hundred and 

 twenty-eight days when night alternates with day-light, the sun is scarcely 

 elevated above the horizon ; we may easily comprehend that the climate of 

 Spitzbergen is one of the most rigorous. The continual presence of the 

 sun during four months, does not compensate for his total absence 

 during a similar period, nor for the obliquity of his rays ; besides, in 

 the months of July and August his disc is generally hidden by the dense mists 

 which arise from the sea. IN^ever is the sky clear for a whole day together. 

 Again, violent winds, cooled by contact with icebergs and glaciers, return 

 after short intervals to lower the temperature of the atmosphere. ISTevertheless, 

 the ^climate of Spitzbergen is not so cold as some of the northern parts of 

 America, situate under the same parallel of latitude, as the extremity of 

 Baffin's Bay, known as Smith's Sound. It is in this region that meteorolo- 

 gists place the pole of greatest cold in the northern hemisphere, which does 

 not coincide with that of the earth, but is found in America in 98° 

 W. Lon. and 78° JST. Lat. If the climate of Spitzbergen is less rigorous 

 than that of these continental regions, it is because the former is an 

 archipelago, the waters of which are warmed by the Gulf-stream, — that 

 I grand current of tepid water, which, born in the gulf of Mexico, traverses the 

 I Atlantic, and expires in the White sea, and on the western shores of Spitz- 

 ] bergen. Thus the latter are always open in summer, whilst the eastern 

 coasts, blocked up by floating icebergs, are rarely accessible, even to the 

 fishers for seals and walruses, which alone frequent these desolate shores. 



