scarcely rises two inches from the ground. Among the few herbs, the Cochlearia, scurvy grass, deserves the first rank, as being the providential resource of distempered seamen. Here are also found several species of Lichen, liverwort, Saxifragia, Ranunculus, Bryum, and few others, of little or no use in the medical world." Reindeer are observable in every part of Spitzbergen; and it is said that parties of Russians have continued there throughout the year, for the purpose of hunting, who were "well provided with fuel from the immense quantities of drifted wood that is every where to be found in the different creeks.”— "The one summer day of Spitzbergen," the author remarks, " continues from about the middle of May to the middle of October, when the sun bids a long adieu to this northern region."

In a brief description of the northern animals, Mr. Laing notices a curious or rather an odd kind of dispute, which has taken place among naturalists respecting discrimination of taste in the appetite of the polar bear. "Some naturalists maintain that the polar bear chiefly delights in human flesh; which is expressly contradicted by Fabricius, who from long residence in Greenland must be allowed to be unexceptionable authority. He says, it will not prey on man unless pressed by hunger." This may be considered as strange: but, apprehending, as we do, that the time at which the bear is not hungry must be when he is asleep, the wonder is considerably abated: yet, even in that state, his quick sense of smelling might probably sleep less soundly than his other senses. As for his discrimination, that quality might appear when variety within his reach afforded him an opportunity of showing preference: but, when he had only " Hobson's choice," we suspect that he would, whatsoever the fare, invariably prefer it to the continuance of hunger. On mature consideration, we desire not to trust ourselves to the discriminate forbearance of Mr. Bruin, whether famished or full, even on the authority of Fabricius.

Seals have been remarked to be very sagacious, and of sociable dispositions. About seven years ago, a live seal was brought to London, and exhibited as a curiosity. In countenance and manner it much resembled a dog, having a similar expression of familiarity, but by no means the same degree of animation. A tub

being kept filled with salt water for him, and level with the top of the tub, a bank being made with straw on it, he might be said to have had a choice of being at sea or on shore; and so contented was he with his situation, that he had increased 30 lbs. in weight from the time at which he was first taken. It has been observed that these animals have a quick sense of hearing, and are delighted with musical sounds.

The author describes the manner of pursuing and killing the whale: but we learn that the south whale fishery in late years has procured much respite for the northern whales, the ships employed at present in the Greenland fishery, from this country, being not above one-fourth of the number employed thirty years ago.

So early in the season as the 28th of May, the ship was in latitude, by observation, 81° 50′ N., " the sea-shore at this time," the author remarks, "almost clear of ice, with a great swell."From what quarter the swell came, he has omitted to specify.

The weather was serene. Had our object been the making discoveries, there was not apparently any thing to have prevented us from going a good way farther to the north." This statement holds out something like encouragement to the reader to expect that the sea may be found navigable even to the Pole: but, in the ensuing page, Mr. L. relates; " In my second voyage to this country (i. e. 1807), we could not penetrate higher than 78° 30' N. A ridge of ice totally prevented our farther progress." It is regarded as a circumstance favourable to the experiment now making, that a larger quantity of ice was dismissed from the Northern Sea in the last year than that which has been noticed in any former year.

On the 26th of June, which may there also be called midsummer, the weather was so sharp that one of the boat-steerers, being thrown overboard by a stroke from the tail of a whale, was taken into the boat again almost senseless with the cold; and before they could row him to the ship, he was apparently without life. "He was laid on a blanket before the fire. No pulsation was found in any part, and a mirror held before his mouth produced no evidence of respiration." After having vainly tried to restore animation by chafing, hot flannels, camphorated spirits, and other applications, Mr. Laing ordered, as the last resource, that one of

the men should blow into the patient's mouth as strongly as he could, holding his nostrils, at the same time, lest any of the air should escape.

"When I found, by the rising of the chest, that the lungs were properly inflated, I ordered him to quit blowing, and with my hand pressed down the chest and belly, so as to expel the air. This imitation of natural respiration was pursued for a short time, till putting my hand on his left breast, I found his heart give some feeble beats: soon after, the pulse at the wrist was found to beat."—" Captain Scoresby was so kind as to order him to be put into his own bed, with two of the men, one on each side, to bring him the sooner to a natural heat."

The Resolution did not lose a single man in either of the voyages which the writer made to the Greenland seas.

In imitation of bulky authors, Mr. Laing has subjoined an appendix to the narrative of his voyages, in which is an account of a town named Hammerfest in West Finmark, from a communication made by a gentleman who was in the North Seas in the year 1814, on board the British frigate Sybille, sent there for the protection of our Greenland fishery. Hammerfest is in so high a latitude as 70° 38′ N., and we believe that it has not yet found its way into our gazetteers.

"About the 20th of June, the ships Sybille and Princess Carolina stood from Spitzbergen for the North Cape, in order to water, and procure any refreshments that could be got. After making the land to the westward of the cape, we stood into a large bay, to look for a place of safety to accomplish our purpose, hardly suspecting that any inhabitants were to be found. On standing in, we observed some boats under sail, one of which was soon brought along side, that contained a family of Finmarkers, some of whom spoke the Danish language. They informed us of the town of Hammerfest being close by, and offered to take us in. This offer was soon embraced, and in a few hours, the town opened to our view; which, to our astonishment, contained a church, batteries, &c. The captain of the port soon made his appearance, and anchored us in safety. I made a survey of this place, and ascertained its latitude to be 70° 38′ 34′′ N., and its longitude 24° 28' E. from the meridian of Greenwich."

Hammerfest is but small, the number of the inhabitants being estimated at only about two hundred. The coast in the neighbourhood of the North Cape, however, appears to be more fully peopled than we could have imagined in a country situated in so

high a latitude. The same writer says, "I was informed that 3000 boats were yearly employed by the Finmarkers in fishing; for as soon as the hunting season is over, they devote their whole attention to the fisheries. Four or five men are attached to each boat."—"The female beauty of Hammerfest had sufficient attraction to induce the gentlemen of the Princess Carolina and Sybille to give them a ball and supper. The invitation was quite general, and the whole went off with great éclat.”

Two other papers in the appendix consist of extracts from observations written by Mr. Scoresby, son of captain S. of the Resolution, and inserted in the Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, on the subject of polar ice, and the possibility of reaching the North Pole. We shall have occasion in our next number to make a report of these memoirs: but, in the mean time, we may now quote a few paragraphs respecting the tremendous masses of ice which occur in the high northern latitudes.

"The occasional rapid motion of fields, with the strange effects produced on any opposing substance, exhibited by such bodies, is one of the most striking objects this country presents, and is certainly the most ter rific. They not unfrequently acquire a rotatory movement, whereby their circumference attains a velocity of several miles per hour. A field, thus in motion, coming in contact with another at rest, or more especially with a contrary direction of movement, produces a dreadful shock. A body of more than ten thousand millions of tons in weight,* meeting with resistance, when in motion, the consequences may possibly be conceived!

"It may easily be imagined, that the strongest ship can no more withstand the shock of the contact of two fields, than a sheet of paper can stop a musket-ball. Numbers of vessels, since the establishment of the fishery, have been thus destroyed. Some have been thrown upon the ice: some have had their hulls completely torn open; and others have been buried beneath the heaped fragments of the ice."".

"In the month of May 1813, I witnessed a tremendous scene. Whilst navigating amidst the most ponderous ice which the Greenland seas pre

* A field of thirty nautical miles square surface, and thirteen feet in thickness, would weigh somewhat more than is here mentioned. Allowing it to displace the water in which it floats, to the depth of eleven feet, the weight would appear to be 10,182,857,142, nearly in the proportion of a cubic foot of sea water to 64 lbs.'

sent. in the prospect of making our escape from a state of beselment, our progress was unexpectedly arrested by an isthmus of ice, about a mile in breadth, formed by the coalition of the point of an immense field on the north, with that of an aggregation of floes on the south. To the north field we moored the ship, in the hope of the ice separating in this place.— I then quitted the ship, and travelled over the ice to the point of collision, to observe the state of the bar which now prevented our release. I immediately discovered that the two points had but recently met; that already a prodigious mass of rubbish had been squeezed upon the top, and that the motion had not abated. The fields continued to overlay each other with a majestic motion, producing a noise resembling that of complicated machinery, or distant thunder. The pressure was so immense, that numerous fissures were occasioned, and the ice repeatedly rent beneath my feet. In one of the fissures, I found the snow on the level to be three and a half feet deep, and the ice upwards of twelve. In one place, hummocks had been thrown up to the height of twenty feet from the surface of the field, and at least twenty-five feet from the level of the water, they extended fifty or sixty yards in length, and fifteen in breadth, forming a mass of about two thousand tons in weight. The majestic unvaried movement of the ice-the singular noise with which it was accompanied -the tremendous power exerted-and the wonderful effects producedwere calculated to excite sensations of novelty and grandeur, in the mind of even the most careless spectator!"'

In the second paper, Mr. S. considers the possibility of reaching the North Pole by travelling over the ice on sledges, drawn by reindeer, or dogs; enumerating the several difficulties, and endeavouring to suggest means of obviating them. He evidently leans to the opinion that the attempt might be successful.

GAYETY COMPARED TO GOOD HUMOUR.

GAYETY is to good humour as animal perfume to vegetable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. Gayety seldom fails to give some pain; the hearers either strain their faculties to accompany its towerings, or are left behind in envy or despair. Good humour boasts no faculties, which every one does not believe in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending.