Cowper has some lines on the ice-islands seen floating in the German ocean; we quote a part only of this pleasing description: Like burnished brass they shine, or beaten gold; Come they from India, where the burning earth, Should sooner far have marked and seized the prize. With borrowed beams they shine. The gales that breathe The collision of the great fields of ice, in high latitudes, is often attended with a noise, that, for a time, 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 north west of Spitzbergen are among the capital wonders of the country. The glaciers of Switzerland seem contemptible to these. They are seven in number, but at considerable distances from each other; and each fills the vallies for tracts unknown, in a region totally inaccessible in the internal parts. The last exhibits over the sea a front three hundred feet high, emulating the emerald in colour : cataracts of melted snow precipitate down various parts; and black spiring mountains, streaked with white, bound the sides, and rise in the back ground, crag above crag, as far as the eye can reach. At times, immense fragments break off, and tumble into the water with a most alarming dashing. A piece of this vivid green substance has fallen, grounded in twenty-four fathoms water, and spired above the surface fifty feet. Similar icebergs are common in all the arctic regions; and to their lapses is owing the solid mountainous ice which infests those seas. Frost sports also 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. There are other curious particulars, which, with some reflections suitable to the subject, we shall reserve for our next paper; concluding this with part of Thomson's magnificent description of the icy regions: The Muse Thence sweeps the howling margin of the main ; The binding fury; but, in all its rage The sailor, and the pilot to the helm. Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth, to discover the north-east passage. No. V. FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON THE POLAR Vast regions dreary, bleak, and bare! And, hid for half the year, in smoky caverns lie. JOHN SCOTT. IN the preceding paper, we described the picturesque appearances of the ice in the dreary regions of Spitzbergen. The snow, moreover, in those high latitudes, exhibits phenomena not less singular than those of the ice. At first, it appears small and hard as the finest sand; it then changes its form to that of a hexagonal shield, into the shape of needles, crosses, cinquefoils, and stars, some plain, and some serrated rays. These forms depend upon the disposition of the atmosphere; and in calm weather, the snow coalesces, and falls in clusters. The single night of this dreadful country begins about the 30th of October: the Sun then sets, 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. In the height of summer, the Sun has heat enough to melt the tar on the decks of ships; but from August its power declines: it sets fast. After the middle of September, day is hardly distinguishable, and, by the end of October, takes a long farewell of this country: the days now become frozen, and winter reigns triumphant. Earth and soil are denied to the frozen regions of Spitzbergen: at least, the only thing which resembles soil, is the grit worn from the mountains by the power of the winds, or the attrition of cata The racts of melted snow: this, indeed, is assisted by the putrefied lichens of the rocks, and the dung of birds, brought down by the same means. composition of these islands is stone, formed by the sublime hand of omnipotent Power; not fritted into segments, transverse or perpendicular, but cast, at once, into one immense and solid mass. A mountain, throughout, is but a single stone, destitute of fissures, except in places cracked by the irresistible power of frost, which often causes lapses, attended by a noise like thunder, and scattering over their bases rude and extensive ruins. The vallies, or rather glens, of this country, are filled with eternal ice or snow. They are totally inaccessible, and known only by the divided course of the mountains, or where they terminate in the icebergs or glaciers we have already described. No streams water their dreary bottoms; and even springs are denied. The mariners are indebted for fresh water solely to the periodical cataracts of melted snow in the short season of |