82 
at Spitzbergen, or at least are extremely 
rare. Forster supposes, that the elec¬ 
tric exhalations in a country, so much 
covered with snow, must be very few; 
and these so much consumed by the fre¬ 
quency of the Aurora Borealis , that there 
is never collected at one time a quantity 
of fluid sufficient to produce thunder and 
lightning. That luminous appearance, 
so often observed during a storm in this 
country, he alleges to be the effect of 
volcanic eruptions; though this, I con¬ 
fess, seems to me extremely proble¬ 
matical. Vid. Forster’s Hist. Voyages , 
p. 486. 
There is a great diversity among the 
accounts given by different travellers, of 
the forms assumed by the new fallen 
snow in this country. During hard frost, 
X always observed, that the flakes closely 
resembled an asterisk with six points. 
As the temperature varied, their appear¬ 
ance was changed, which may, perhaps, 
