same line, as the latitude of 70, enveloping the whole of that island, but forming below it a wide bay, called the Whale-fisher's Bight, on the parallel of Bear Island. The former are called open, and the latter close, seasons. In open seasons, the ships employed in these fisheries find a channel from 20 to 50 leagues wide, through which they shoot forward along the shores of Spitzbergen, till they reach the latitude of 78° or 79°, where the whales are most abundant. The chase of whales seldom lasts above two months, commencing generally at the end of April, and terminating with June, when those huge animals disappear, and the prevalence of dense fogs renders the navigation very dangerous. Mr Scoresby thinks it were better if our Greenland ships, like the Dutch and other foreigners, began their voyage somewhat later than has become the practice. In close seasons, the hardy navigator is obliged, with imminent peril and hazard, to impel his ship, by boring under a press of sail, and assisted by ropes and saws, through the drift ice which borders the great barrier, endeavouring to follow every vein of water that runs nearly in the required direction. If he fail in this attempt, he must forego the chance of a profitable voyage, and content himself with the humbler pursuit of catching seals.

The space over which the line of ice may be supposed to oscillate in the Greenland seas, extends 1400 miles from Cape Farewell, to 200 miles beyond Jan Mayen's island, which it includes, and has a mean breadth of about 80 miles. Such is the extent of the mere surplus ice formed and dissolved from year to year,-exceeding the whole surface of Great Britain. The quantity melted or liberated during these last two years, hence, bears no very considerable proportion to the ordinary fluctuating mass. It is evident, therefore, that, whatever may be the casual variations of the frozen expanse, no mighty alteration has yet taken place in the climate and condition of the Arctic seas.

If we compare the journals of former navigators, we shall be convinced, that all the changes of the polar ice are periodical, and are again repeated at no very distant intervals of time. We may pass over the pretensions of some Dutch navigators, who alleged that they had been carried, by winds or currents, as far north as the latitude of 88°, or even that of 89° 40', and consequently only 20 miles from the Pole; since their estimate, at all times rude, from observations with the forestaff, was then founded on mere dead reckoning, after a continuation of foggy weather. Davis, in 1587, ascended, in the Strait which deservedly bears his name, to the latitude of 72° 12′, where he found the variation of the compass to be 82° west,

or nearly the same as at present. In 1616, Baffin advanced, in the same quarter, as high as the latitude of 78 degrees. The same skilful navigator had, two years before, penetrated in the Greenland seas, to the latitude of 81°, and seen land as high as that of 82°, lying to the north-east of Spitzbergen. But it is mortifying to remark how little progress has been made in geographical discovery since those early and intrepid adventurers explored the Arctic regions with their humble barks, which seldom exceeded the size of fifty tons. We must pass over a very long interval, to obtain authentic information. In 1751, Captain M'Callani, whom Mr Barrington calls a scientific seaman, sailed, without obstruction, from Hackluyt's Headland, as high as the latitude of 83°, where he found an open sea; and, the weather being fine, nothing hindered him from proceeding farther, but his responsibility to its owners for the safety of the ship. Captain Wilson, about the end of June 1754, having traversed floating ice, from the latitude of 74° to 81°, at last found the sea quite clear as far as he could descry; and he advanced to the latitude of 83°, till, not meeting with any whales, and beginning to apprehend some danger, he shaped back his course. At this very time, Captain Guy, after four days of foggy weather, was likewise carried to the same point. The Polar seas, at this period, must indeed have been remarkably open; for one of the most extraordinary and best authenticat ed voyages was performed in 1754 by Mr Stephens, a very skilful and accurate observer, whose testimony is put beyond all manner of doubt, by the cool judgment of the late astronomer-royal, Dr Maskelyne. This navigator informed him, that, about the end of May, he was driven off Spitzbergen by a southerly wind, which blew for several days, till he had reached the latitude of 844°; and that, in the whole of this run, he met with little ice and no drift wood, and did not find the cold to be anywise excessive. In different subsequent years, the Greenland whalers have advanced to the latitude of 81 or 82 degrees. This was accomplished even in 1766; although, according to Kerguelin, the whole space between Iceland and the opposite coast was then frozen over. The year 1773, or that in which Captain Phipps performed his voyage, was still more favourable for approaching towards the North Pole. In 1806, the elder Mr Scoresby ascended to the latitude of 81° 50'; but, in the following year, he could not proceed farther than the parallel of 781. In 1811, the higher Latitudes were again accessible; and, after a short interval, the summers of 1815, 1816, and 1817, are represented as open VOL. XXX. No. 59.

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seasons; though none of the whalers have now penetrated so far into the north as had been done in many former years, and particularly in 1754.

In this plain statement, we certainly can perceive no decided symptoms of any general or progressive tendency towards a dissolution of the Polar ice. The frozen border alters its position from one year to another, and probably returns again to the same limits after certain short periods of time. Such fluctuations are analogous to the incessant changes which affect the state of the weather in the more temperate regions. The complex system of winds moulds the climate, and varies the features of the seasons over the globe. It is a common remark of those who frequent the Polar seas, that they find always the least obstruction from ice when the preceding winter has been very severe in the more southern latitudes. In the year 1766, though the frost had proved most intense through the rest of Europe, the whalers, as we have seen, reached a high latitude: And, not to multiply instances, the three last seasons, which have been reckoned very open, have succeeded to winters notoriously cold and protracted. Nor is it difficult to discern the reason of this seeming paradox; for our severe winters are occasioned by the prevalence of northerly winds, which must arrive at the Polar seas from the south, and consequently transport so much warmth to them as may check the usual rigour

of the frost.

The main argument, however, brought to prove the deterioration of the Arctic climate, is drawn from the supposed existence of a colony, which had once flourished on the eastern coast of Greenland, but has, for several centuries, become extinct, all access to its remains being at length completely barred by the accumulation of ice. This tale, which seems to have owed its birth to Torfeus the historian of Norway, has, perhaps from its. paradoxical air, obtained very general credence. Yet, a sober examination of the early Sagas, or northern chronicles, so full of wonder and fable, will show that there is no solid reason for entertaining such a notion, or believing that the first settlement of Greenland was made on the east side of the continent. The whole contexture of the original narrative indicates the very opposite conclusion.

After the North had ceased to send forth her numerous swarms upon the fertile provinces of the Roman empire, the Scandinavian nations, prompted by their peculiar situation, betook themselves to a life of maritime adventure. Those bold and hardy pirates visited every sea, and pillaged, for a course of near three hundred years, all the coasts of Eu

rope, from the extremity of Scotland to the shores of Sicily. During the first half of the ninth century, they conquered the Orkneys, the Shetland and Western Isles-obtained possession of Ireland-plundered England and France--and extended their ravages to Italy. In 876, the Northmen, or Normands, extorted from the weakness of the French king the cession of the fine province of Neustria, where they quietly settled: while another party of these fierce invaders had occupied the fertile coast of Esthonia, on the south side of the Baltic.

But the visits of those intrepid navigators were not confined to the richer countries of the South. They carried ravens with them, for the purpose of discovering distant land, by the di rection of the flight of those powerful and sagacious birds. In 861, Nadodd, a roving pirate, in one of his voyages in the northern seas, happened to be cast away on an island which he 'called Snowland. Three years afterwards, Gardar and Flocke, two Swedes, visited it; and having found a great quantity of drift ice collected on the north side of it, they gave it the name of Iceland, which it still bears. But in 874, Ingolf and Leif, two famous Norwegian adventurers, carried a colony to this inhospitable region, the latter having enriched it with the booty which he had ravaged from England. Other emigrants, whom the disorders of the times drove successively from home, resorted in crowds to the new settlement, which became very considerable in the space of a few years.

Iceland itself was able, after the progress of about a century, to send out likewise her colonies. Thorwald, a Thorwald, a proud and opulent Norwegian chief, who had been lately banished thither from the court for some murder committed by him at home, soon died in exile, leaving his wealth and his restless spirit to his son Eric Raude, or the Red. This youth, actuated by the same vengeful passions, killed one of his neighbours in a combat, and was obliged to withdraw himself from Iceland for the space of three years. In 982, Eric sailed in quest of adventure and discovery. Instructed by the reports of former navigators, he directed his course towards the south-west; and, after a quick run, he descried two lofty mountains, the one covered with snow and the other cased with ice, which he called Huitserken, and Blaaserken, or the white shirt, and the blue shirt; and soon reached a headland which he doubled; and having entered a spacious creek, he spent the winter on a pleasant adjacent island. In the following season, pursuing his discoveries, he explored the Continent, and was delighted by the freshness and verdure of its coast. Contrasting this new country with the dark rocks of Iceland, he bestowed on it the flattering

-appellation of Greenland; and on his return, invited settlers to join him, by circulating the most glowing and exaggerated descriptions. With 25 vessels, he sailed back again; but of these only 14 reached their destination. This colony was soon augmented, by the arrival of other adventurers, not only from Iceland, but from the Orkneys and other islands planted by the Norwegians. In the year 999, Leif, a son of Eric Raude, having visited the court of Norway, was induced, by the zealous and earnest solicitation of King Olaf Tryggeson, to embrace the Christian faith; and, carrying with him some monks, he found, through their ministry, no great difficulty in persuading his father and the rest of the settlers to forsake the rites of paganism.

The first colony having extended itself along the coast to a wide firth, another settlement beyond that boundary was established farther towards the west.. The former, called Oestre Bygd, or the Eastern Settlement, is said to have included in its most flourishing state, twelve parishes and two convents; and the latter termed Vestre Bygd, or the Western Settlement, contained four parishes. It should be observed, however, that all such estimates are merely relative. A church in Norway is, even at present, only a small wooden booth; and the villages of that remote and sterile country would hardly pass for hamlets in England. The colonists of Greenland were compelled to lead a life of hardship and severe privations. They dwelt in hovels surrounded by mountains of perpetual ice; they never tasted bread, but subsisted on the fish which they caught, joined to a little milk obtained from their starving cows; and, with seal-skins and the tusks of the walrus, they purchased from the traders who occasionally visited them, the wood required for fuel and the construction of their huts.

a

Such is the abridged narrative of the discovery and occupation of Greenland, as given by Snorre Sturleson, who composed his chronicle between the years 1212 and 1215. But à learned Danish writer, on the authority of a Papal Bull, granting, in 834, to Archbishop Ansgarius, permission to convert the northern heathens, carries the antiquity of Greenland much higher, and refers the date of its first settlement to the year 770. This document, however, is no doubt a forgery or interpolation of the monks, who, during the dark ages, commonly practised such pious frauds, to aggrandize the power and wealth of the Church.

Combining together the different circumstances, it seems clear, therefore, that the original colony of Greenland began about the southern promontory, near Cape Farewell, and stretched along the coast in a north-westerly direction. Farther north, and