Here we rested until I took a few angles and bearings of the most prominent parts of the coast, when, having collected specimens of the minerals, and such few plants as the barren ridge afforded, we proceeded on our excursion. In our way to the principal mountain near us, we passed along a ridge of the secondary mountains, which was so acute that I sat across it with a leg on each side as on horseback. To the very top it consisted of loose sharp limestones, of a yellowish or reddish colour, smaller in size than the stones generally used for repairing high roads, few pieces being above a pound in weight. The fracture appeared rather fresh. After passing along this ridge about three or four furlongs, and crossing a lodgment of ice and snow, we descended by a sort of ravine to the side of the principal mountain, which arose with a uniformly steep ascent, similar to that we had already surmounted, to the very summit. The ascent was now even more difficult than before; we could make no considerable progress, but by the exertion of leaping and running, so that we were obliged to rest after every fifty or sixty paces. No solid rock was met with, and no earth or soil. The stones, however, were larger, appeared more decayed, and were more uniformly covered with black lichens; but several plants of the Saxifraga, Salix, Draba, Cochlearia, and Juncus genera, which had been met with here and there for the first two thousand feet of elevation, began to disappear as we approached the summit. The invariably broken state of the rocks appeared to have been the effect of frost. On calcareous rocks, some of which are not impervious to moisture, the effect is such as might be expected; but how frost can operate in this way on quartz is not so easily understood.
As we completed the arduous ascent, the sun had just reached the meridian below the Pole, and still shed his reviving rays of unimpaired brilliancy on a small surface of snow, which capped the mountain summit. A thermometer, placed among stones in the shade of the brow of the hill, indicated a temperature as high as 37°. At the top of the first hill, the temperature was 42°; and at the foot, on the plain, 44° to 46°; so that, at the very peak of the mountain, estimated at three thousand feet elevation, the power of the sun at midnight produced a temperature several degrees above the freezing point, and occasioned the discharge of streams of water from the snow-capped summit. In Spitzbergen, the frost relaxes in the months of July and August, and the thawing temperature prevails for considerable intervals on the greatest heights that have been visited.
As the capacity of air for heat increases as its density decreases, and that in such a degree that about every ninety yards of elevation in the lower atmosphere produces a depression of one degree of temperature of Fahrenheit, we find that the elevation of some of the Alps, Pyrenees, and mountains of Nepaul in the temperate zone, is such, that their summits are above the level where a temperature of thawing can at any time prevail; and though, by the application of this principle to the mountains of Spitzbergen, we find that a thawing temperature may be occasionally expected, yet we do not see how the prevalence of a thaw should be so continual as to disperse the winter’s coat of snow, where the mean temperature of the hottest month in the year must, on a mountain fifteen hundred feet elevation or upward, probably be below the freezing point. Perhaps the difficulty is to be thus resolved. The weather, in the months of June, July, and August, is much clearer at Spitzbergen than it is near the neighbouring ice, where most of my observations on temperature were made, and as such the temperature of these months on shore must be warmer than at sea, and so much higher indeed as is requisite for occasioning the dissolution of snow even on the tops of the mountains.
The highest temperature I ever observed in Spitzbergen was 48°; but in the summer of 1773, when captain Phipps visited Spitzbergen, a temperature of 58½° once occurred. Supposing this to be the greatest, degree of height which takes place, it will require an elevation of 7,791 feet for reducing that temperature to the freezing point, and hence we may reckon this to be about the altitude of the upper line of congelation, where frost perpetually prevails.
The prospect from the mountain which we ascended was most extensive and grand. A fine sheltered bay was seen on the east of us, an arm of the same on the north-east, and the sea, whose glassy surface was unruffled by the breeze, formed an immense expanse on the west; the icebergs, rearing their proud crests almost to the tops of the mountains between which they were lodged, and defying the power of the solar beams, were scattered in various directions about the sea-coast, and in the adjoining bays. Beds of snow and ice, filling extensive hollows, and giving an enamelled coat to adjoining valleys, one of which, commencing at the foot of the mountain where we stood, extended in a continued line across the north, as far as the eye could reach; mountain rising above mountain, until by distance they dwindled into insignificance; the whole contrasted by a cloudless canopy of deepest azure, and enlightened by the rays of a blazing sun, and the effect aided by a feeling of danger, seated as we were on the pinnacle of a rock, almost surrounded by tremendous precipices; all united to constitute a picture singularly sublime.
A gentle breeze of wind, that prevailed on the summit, much refreshed us, and strengthened us for the descent, which, though we had regarded it with indifference, we found really a very hazardous, and, in some instances, a painful undertaking. On the flat of land next the sea, we met with the horns of reindeer, many skulls and other bones of sea-horses, whales, narwhales, foxes, and seals, and some human skeletons, laid in chest-like coffins, exposed naked on the strand. Two Russian lodges formed of logs of pine, with a third in ruins, were also seen; the former, from a quantity of fresh chips about them, and other appearances, gave evidence of having been recently inhabited. These huts were built upon a ridge of shingle, adjoining the sea. Among the shingle on the beach were numbers of nests, containing the eggs of terns, ducks, and burgomasters, and in some of them were young birds. One of the latter, which we took on board, was very lively, and grew rapidly, but having taken a fancy to a cake of white lead, with which the surgeon was finishing a drawing, he was poisoned. The only insect I saw was a small green fly, which swarmed upon the shingle about the beach. The sea along the coast teemed with a species of helix, with the clio borealis, and with small shrimps. No animal of the class Vermes, and no living quadruped, was observed. Drift-wood was in some abundance, and, owing to the prevalence of a strong west wind, the shore was covered in many places with deep beds of sea-weed.
Of all the objects, however, that we met with in the course of our research, none excited so much interest as the carcase of a dead whale, found stranded on the beach, which, though much swollen, and not a little putrid, fixed our attention, and diverted us from objects of mere curiosity. It proved a prize to us of the value of about £400, but was not secured without much labour. From a harpoon found in its body, it appeared to have been struck by some of the fishers on the Elbe, and having escaped from them, it had probably stranded itself where we found it.
The climate of Spitzbergen is no doubt more disagreeable to human feeling than that of any other country yet discovered. Extending to within ten degrees of the Pole, it is generally intensely cold, and even in the three warmest months, the temperature not averaging more than 34½°, it is then subject to a cold of three, four, or more degrees below the freezing point. It has the advantage, however, of being visited by the sun for an uninterrupted period of four months in each year, thus having a summer’s day—if so long an interval between the rising and setting of the sun may be so denominated—consisting of one-third part of the year. But its winter is proportionably desolate; the sun, in the northern parts of the country, remaining perpetually below the horizon from about the 22nd of October to about the 22nd of February. This great winter night, though sufficiently dreary, is by no means so dark as might be expected, God having, by wise and merciful arrangements, distributed, with some approach to equality, the blessings of his providence. The sun, even during its greatest south declination, approaches within 13½° of the horizon, and affords a faint twilight for about one-fourth part of every twenty-four hours. Added to this twilight, the aurora borealis, which sometimes exhibits a brilliancy approaching a blaze of fire—the stars, which shine with an uncommon degree of brightness—and the moon, which, in north declination, appears for twelve or fourteen days together without setting—altogether have an effect, which, when heightened by the reflection of a constant surface of snow, generally give sufficient light for going abroad; but, with the light afforded by the heavens, when the moon is below the horizon, it is seldom possible to read.
The first human beings who are known to have passed the winter in Spitzbergen, were two parties of seamen, belonging to English whalers, who were left on shore by accident, on two different occasions; the first party, consisting of nine persons, all perished; but the latter, composed of eight individuals, survived the rigours of the winter of 1630-1, and were all rescued. In the year 1633, seven volunteers, belonging to the Dutch fleet, were induced, by certain emoluments, to attempt the same enterprise, and succeeded in passing the winter without sustaining any injury; but, on the same hazardous experiment being tried by seven other persons the following winter, they all fell a sacrifice to the ravages of the scurvy. Some Russians seem to have been the next to attempt this adventurous exploit, who, from being inured to a winter little less severe at home, were enabled to accomplish it with more safety. Four men, who landed on an island on the east side of Spitzbergen, in the year 1743, and were deprived of the means of getting away by an unexpected calamity having overtaken the vessel to which they belonged, remained there some years. Being exposed to uncommon privations, they were led by their necessities to adopt some most ingenious devices for providing themselves with food and raiment in their long and severe banishment. One of their number died; but the others were relieved, after a stay of three years and six months, by a vessel providentially driven on the coast, and restored to their friends, enriched with skins and other produce of the country in which they had been exiled.
In modern times, people of the same nation have been in the habit of submitting to a voluntary transportation, with the object of making some considerable advantage by the opportunities which such a measure affords them of hunting and fishing. These persons were formerly employed in the service of the “White Sea Fishing Company;” but this company being now no longer in existence, the trade is conducted by private adventurers. They now proceed from Megen, Archangel, Onega, Rala, and other places bordering the White Sea, in vessels of sixty to one hundred and sixty tons, some intended for the summer fishing, and others for the winter. The former put to sea in the beginning of June, and sometimes return in September; the latter sail about a month later, and wintering in the most secure coves of Devil Bay, Bell Sound, Horn Sound, Cross Bay, Magdalen Bay, Love Bay, and others, return home in the months of August or September of the following year. The fishermen reside on shore during the winter, in huts of the same kind as those used by the peasants in Russia, which, being taken out with them in pieces, are constructed with but little trouble, in the most convenient situations. They build their stoves with bricks, or with clay, found in the country. Their largest hut, which is erected near the place where their vessels or boats are laid up, is from twenty to twenty-five feet square, and is used as a station and magazine; but the huts used by the men who go in quest of skins, which are erected along shore, are only seven or eight feet square. The smaller huts are usually occupied by two or three men, who take care to provide themselves from the store with the necessary provisions for serving them the whole winter.