and never appears till about the 10th of February. A glimmering, indeed, continues some weeks after the setting of the sun then succeed clouds and thick darkness, broken by the light of the moon, which is as luminous as in England, and during this long night shines with unfailing lustre. The cold strengthens with the new year; and the sun is ushered in with an unusual severity of frost. By the middle of March the cheerful light grows strong; the arctic foxes leave their holes; and the sea-fowl resort in great multitudes to their breeding places. The sun sets no more after the 14th of May. The distinction of day and night is then lost. But to make up for the want of sunshine, in such a long and tedious winter, the wisdom and goodness of God has amply provided, by furnishing, in addition to the light of the moon, the northern inhabitants of our globe with such a copious display of the aurora borealis, or what the common people here call streamers. In Shetland, these northern lights, which the natives call merry dancers, are the constant attendants of the clear evenings, and prove great reliefs amid the gloom of the long winter nights. They commonly appear at twilight near the horizon, of a dun colour, approaching to yellow; sometimes continuing in that state for several hours without any apparent motion; after which they break out into streams of stronger light, spreading into columns, and altering slowly into ten thousand different shapes, varying their colours from all the tints of yellow to the most obscure russet. They often cover the whole hemisphere, and then make the most brilliant appearance. Their notions at these times are most amazingly quick; and they astonish the spectator with the rapid changes of their form. They break out in places where none were were seen before, skimming briskly along the heavens. On a sudden they are extinguished, and leave behind a uniform dusky tract. This again is illuminated in the same manner, and as suddenly left a dull blank. In certain nights they assume the appearance of vast columns, on one side of the deepest yellow, on the other declining away till it be comes undistinguished from the sky. They have gener ally a strong tremulous motion from end to end, which continues till the whole vanishes. In a word, we, who only see the extremities of these northern phenomena, have but a faint idea of their splendour and their mo tions. In Siberia there is one species of the aurora borealis, which regularly appears between the north-east and east, like a luminous rainbow, with numbers of columns of light radiating from it. Beneath the arch is a darkness, through which the stars appear with some brilliancy. There is another kind, which begins with certain insulated rays, from the north, and others from the north-east. They augment little by little till they fill the whole sky, and form a splendour of colours rich as gold, rubies, and emeralds but the attendant phenomena strike the beholders with horror; for they crackle, sparkle, hiss, make a whistling sound, and a noise even equal to artificial fireworks. In Hudson's bay, moreover, the firmament, in winter, is not without its beauties. The night is enlivened by the aurora borealis, which spreads a thousand different lights and colours over the whole concave of the sky, not to be defaced even by the splendour of the full moon; and the stars are of a fiery redness. Wonders of the North! As we advance into these dreary regions, we meet with those picturesque objects, which attract and captivate the most incurious eye. In the icy seas, and particularly at Spitzbergen (which is the largest of that group of frozen islands, which go under that name, or that of New Greenland) the forms assumed by the ice are extremely pleasing. The surface of that which is congealed from the sea water, is flat, even, and hard, resembling white sugar, and is capable of being slid upon. The greater pieces, or fields, are many leagues in length: the smaller are the meadows of the seals, on which those animals, at times, frolic by hundreds. The motion of the smaller pieces is as rapid as the currents: the greater which are sometimes 200 leagues long, and sixty or eighty broad, move slowly and majestically. They often fix for a time, immoveable by the power of the ocean, and then produce near the horizon that bright white appearance, cailed by mariners the blink of the ice. These float in the sea like so many rugged mountains, and are sometimes five or six hundred yards thick; but the far greater part is concealed beneath the water. These are continually increased in height by the freezing of the spray of the sea, or of the melted snow which falls on them. Those which remain in this frozen climate receive continual growth others are gradually wafted by the northern winds into southern latitudes, and melt by degrees, by the heat of the sun, till they waste away, and disappear in the boundless element. The collision of the great fields of ice in high latitudes, is often attended with a noise, that, for the time takes เ takes away the power of hearing any thing else; and the meeting of the lesser fields is attended with a grinding of unspeakable horror. The water which dashes against the mountainous ice freezes into an infinite variety of forms, and gives the voyager ideal towns, streets, churches, steeples, and every shape which imagination can frame. The icebergs or glaciers of the northwest of Spitzbergen are among the capital wonders of the country. Frost sports with these icebergs, and gives them majestic, as well as other most singular forms. Masses have been seen assuming the shape of a gothic church, with arched windows and doors, and all the rich tracery of that style, composed of what an Arabian tale would scarcely dare to relate, of crystal of the richest sapphirine blue. Tables with one or more feet, and often immense flat-roofed temples, supported by round transparent columns of cerulean hue, float by the astonished spectator.-These icebergs are the creation of ages, and receive annually additional heights, by the falling of snow and rain, which often instantly freezes, and more than repairs the loss by the influence of the melting sun. Such are part of the wonderful phenomena of the polar regions, and the best improvement we can make of such awful and terrific scenes, is to compare them with what we daily behold at home, and learn contentment with that spot, where providence, all-wise, has fixed our resi dence. "One of the great arts to escape superfluous uneasiness, (says a celebrated writer,)" is to free our minds from the habit of comparing our condition with that of others on whom the blessings of life are more bountifully bestowed, or with imaginary states of delight and security, perhaps perhaps unattainable by mortals. Few are placed in a situation so gloomy and distressful, as not to see every day beings more forlorn and miserable, from whom they may learn to rejoice at their own lot." 66 "A native of England, pinched with the frosts of December, may lessen his affection for his own country by suffering his imagination to wander in the vales of Asia, and sport among woods that are always green, and streams that always murmur; but if he turns his thoughts toward the polar regions, and considers the nations to whom a great portion of the year is darkness, and who are con demned to pass weeks and months amid mountains of snow, he will soon recover his tranquility, and while he stirs his fire, or throws his cloak about him, reflect how much he owes to Providence, that he is not placed in Greenland or Siberia." NECESSITY the Mother of Invention! or, The ADVENTURES of FOUR RUSSIAN SAILORS, WHO LIVED SIX YEARS IN GREENLAND. SOME years ago, a Merchant of Mesen, in the government of Archangel, fitted out a vessel carrying 14 men; she was designed for Spitzbergen, to be employed in the whale fishery. For eight successive days after they had sailed, the wind was fair, but on the ninth it changed; so that instead of getting the west of Spitzbergen, the usual place of rendezvous for ships annually employed in the whale fishery, they were driven eastward of those įslands; and after some days they found themselves at a small |