312 
LETTERS FROM. HIGH LATITUDES. 
wonder why on earth we should have wished to come 
so far to see so little. Suffice it to say that we explored 
the neighbourhood in the three directions left open to 
us by the mountains, that we climbed the two most 
accessible of the adjacent hills, wandered along the 
margin of the glaciers, rowed across to the opposite 
side of the bay, descended a certain distance along the 
sea-coast, and in fact exhausted all the lions of the 
vicinity. 
During the whole period of our stay in Spitzbergen, 
we had enjoyed unclouded sunshine. The nights were 
even brighter than the days, and afforded Fitz an oppor¬ 
tunity of taking some photographic views by the light 
of a midnight sun. The cold was never very intense, 
though the thermometer remained below freezing; but 
about four o’clock every evening, the salt-water bay in 
which the schooner lay, was veneered over with a pellicle 
of ice one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and so elastic, 
that even when the sea beneath was considerably agitated, 
its surface remained unbroken—the smooth round waves 
taking the appearance of billows of oil. If such is the 
effect produced by the slightest modification of the sun’s 
power, in the month of August,—you can imagine what 
