264 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
Gulf Stream for a certain distance, the Arctic current is 
ultimately unable to cut across it, and the result is an 
accumulation of ice to the south of Spitzbergen in the 
angle formed by the bifurcation, as Mr. Grote would 
call it, of the warmer current. 
It is quite possible, therefore, that the north-west 
extremity of Spitzbergen may be comparatively' clear, 
while the whole of its southern coasts are enveloped in 
belts of ice of enormous extent. It was on this con¬ 
tingency that we built our hopes, and determined to 
prosecute our voyage, in spite of the discouraging 
report of the Norse skipper. 
About eight o’clock in the evening we got under 
weigh from Hammerfest ; unfortunately the wind 
almost immediately after fell dead calm, and during 
the whole night we lay “ like a painted ship upon a 
painted ocean.” At six o’clock a little breeze sprang 
up, and when we came on deck at breakfast time, the 
schooner was skimming at the rate of five knots an 
hour over the level lanes of water, which lie between 
the silver-grey ridges of gneiss and mica slate that hem 
in the Nordland shore. The distance from Hammerfest 
to Alten is about forty miles along a zigzag chain 
