BOOK morality and history. Every Icelander knows how to LXXVII. write, and to calculate; and the greater part of them are acquainted with biblical history, as well as that of Scandinavia. Among their clergy, many individuals are met with, who are intimately versed in all the beauties of the Greek and Roman literature. The useful study of the physical sciences, however, has not been diffused amongst them.* Such is this colony of Scandinavians, placed between the ice of the pole and the flames of the abyss. Lands to of Iceland. the north To the north of Iceland, extend coasts still imperfectly known, which belong either to Greenland, or to an icy Archipelago. They have only been accidentally seen by navigators, who, in pursuing the whale, penetrated into these dangerous seas. Concussions lately experienced at sea, and masses of floating pumice-stones, appear to indicate the existence of volcanoes about the 75°. Would the hot springs be discovered here, which, according to the brothers Zeni, Island of were employed to heat the monastery of St. Thomas? The island of John de Mayen, which has been often visited, is nothing more than a mass of black coloured rocks, but without any volcanic traces. John de Mayen. gen. The group of three large islands, and of a considerable number of lesser ones, which have received the name of Spitzber- Spitzbergen, terminate, in the present state of our geographical knowledge, this chain of icy lands, which are dependant on Greenland, and, consequently, on North America. The great island of Spitzbergen, properly so called, is separated by narrow canals from the south-east and the north-east islands. The eastern peninsula of the great island, has received the name of New Friesland. Towards the north-west point, are the remains of the establishment formed by the Dutch whalers, called Smeerenberg. The Description mountains of Spitzbergen, crowned with perpetual snow, of this and flanked with glaciers, reflect to a considerable distance a light equal to that of the full moon. These mountains country. Holland, on the Literature and Instruction of the Icelanders, in Sir George Mackenzie's Travels. Troil, Letters on Iceland, p. 184. +In English, the castle of fat, or, fat castle. are probably composed of red granite; the blocks of which, BOOK being in a great measure uncovered, shine like masses of LXXVII. fire, in the middle of the crystals and sapphires formed by the ice. In consequence of their enormous elevation,* they may be descried at a great distance; and, as they shoot up abruptly from the bosom of the sea, the bays, vessels, whales, every thing, in short, appears in their vicinity, extremely minute. The solemn silence that reigns in this desert land, increases the mysterious horror which the navigator experiences on his approach. Nevertheless, the death of nature is even here only periodical. One uninterrupted day, of five months' duration, supplies the place of summer. The rising and setting of the sun mark the limits of the vivifying season. Yet, it is only towards the middle of this season, or, if the expression be preferred, towards the noon of this protracted day, that the heat, long accumulated, penetrates a little way into the frozen earth. Although pitch on vessels is melted with the rays of the sun, still only a small number of plants expand, such as the cochleariæ, ranunculuses, and sedums; and Martens might have gathered a chaplet of poppy flowers along these gloomy shores. The gulfs and bays are filled with fuci and algae of gigantic dimensions, one species being two hundred feet in length. It is among these marine forests that the phocæ and whales love to Whales roll their enormous bodies, those vast masses of fat, which the fishermen of Europe pursue even to the very middle of eternal ice. It is there that these animals search for the mollusca and little fish, their accustomed nourishment. It is there, in short, that these beings, to all appearance so heavy and so insensible, yield themselves up to their social disposition, their sports, and their loves. Assembled together upon a field of ice, the sea-dogs dry their brown-coloured hair; the morse, or hvalross, fastening himself to the rocks, displays his enor Above the clouds,-Phipps' Voyage to Polar Seas. + Morse, is a corruption of the Russian adjective morskaia, maritime. Hvalross, is both Icelandic and Danish, from heal, a whale, and ross, horse; horse BOOK mous defensive weapons, the brilliant ivory of which is conLXXVII. cealed under a layer of sea-slime; while the whale blows through his vast nostrils, fountains of water into the air, and resembles a floating bank, upon which various crustacea and mollusca fix their abode. This peaceful animal, however, is often mortally wounded by the narvhal,* which has received the name of the sea-unicorn, from being generally found deprived of one of its horizontal defences. The whale is also frequently the victim of a species of dolphin, called the sword-fish, who tears out pieces of flesh from his body, and particularly endeavours to devour his tongue. Among all the colossal monsters of the icy sea, one formidable, voracious, and sanguinary quadruped, the polar bear, claims the first rank. At one time, borne along upon an islet of ice, and, at another, swimming in the midst of the waves, he pursues every thing that is animated with life, devours every animal that he encounters, and then, roaring with delight, seats himself enthroned on the victorious trophy of mutilated carcasses and bones. Another quadruped, the timid and amiable rein-deer, browses the moss with which all the rocks are covered. Troops of foxes, and countless swarms of sea birds, likewise repair hither for a little while, to people these solitary islands; but, as soon as the polar day is over, these animals retire across the unknown countries, either to America or to Asia.t The marine animals of Spitzbergen present to the cupidity of Europeans, an attraction which makes them forget the dangers of these inhospitable seas. The whale fishery, mentioned in the ninth century, has often given. employment to as many as four hundred large vessels, of whale. The word hval, seems to be derived from hrall, a little hill, a rising ground, or, as if one were to say, fish-mountain. (Comp. Niala-Saga, glossarium in voce hvall.) * Nar-hval, from nar, Icelandish, dead body, and heal; kill-whale. + Marten's Voyage to Spitzbergen and Greenland, Hamburgh, 1675, in 4to. and the translation in the Voyages to the North. Bacstrom, Voyage to Spitzbergen, in the Philosophical Magazine, 1801. of the all nations. The Dutch, within the space of forty-six BOOK years, caught 32,900 whales, the whale-bone and oil of LXXVII. which were worth fourteen millions sterling.* In the The whale present day, however, these animals appear to fre- fishery. quent the seas of Spitzbergen in fewer numbers, and are no longer met with of the same dimensions as at the commencement of the fishery. The morse is more nu-. merous, and easier to attack. Its skin, made use of for suspending carriages, and its teeth, more compact than those of the elephant, are the objects that occasionally attract to Spitzbergen temporary colonies of Russians. The ancient Britons, even before the Roman invasion, The horn made their sword-pummels of this bone. The ancient narwhal. Scandinavian colony of Greenland, paid in dentes de boardo,' which appear to have been the defences of the morse, the tribute which, under the name of Saint Peter's penny, flowed from the farthest extremities of the earth, to support the magnificence of the Roman palaces, and the pomp of the Papal court. The horn of the narbval has long been the object of superstitious veneration; pretended universal remedies were obtained from it; and it was hung up in the museums with chains of gold. The Margraves of Bareuth ordered several of them to be preserved among the treasures of their family. They had even accepted of one of them as payment of a sum amounting to more than sixty thousand rix-dollars. The two branches of this house shared between them one of these horns, with as many formalities as they would have employed for the division of a whole fief. In the present day, however, physicians have abandoned this panacea, and the veritable unicorne' has lost its imaginary value. Another substance, the original product of these regions, has likewise been the * Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. VII. p. 233. (Germ. Trans.) Solin, Polyhistor, c. 22. Schlegel, Memoirs for the Danish History, t. I. part i. p. 177. Beckman, Apparatus for the knowledge of Merchandise, t. I. p. 399–341. (In German.) Spiess, Archivische nebenarbeiten, No. I. p. 69. BOOK subject of some fables. We allude to the celebrated matter LXXVII. of the cachalot, very improperly denominated spermaceti, but, more appropriately, whale's white. In the north, canSpermaceti dles of a brilliant white are made of it. All these enormous animals, however, are far less useful to man than the herring, of which the icy sea-appears to be either the native abode or the asylum. There, in the midst of inaccessible waters, he sets at defiance all his enemies. causes, however, drive him from this secure retreat, to the north-eastern coasts of Europe and of America, which he surrounds with his countless shoals. Unknown Remarks The extreme abundance of floating wood, which is concerning the floating brought by the sea to the shores of Labrador and Greenwood. land, and especially to those of Iceland, and the arctic lands situated between these two islands, forms another, and the last object of curiosity that deserves to arrest our attention among these polar regions. We are assured that the masses of floating wood thrown by the sea upon the island of John de Mayen, often equals the whole of this island in extent. There are some years, when the Icelanders collect sufficient to serve them for fuel. The bays of Spitzbergen are filled with it, and it accumulates upon those parts of the coasts of Siberia that are exposed to the east, and consists of trunks of larch trees, pines, Siberian cedars, firs, and Fernambucco, and Campeachy woods. These trunks appear to have been swept away by the great rivers of Asia and America. Some of them are brought from the Gulf of Mexico, by the famous Bahama stream, while others are hurried forward by the current, which, to the north of Siberia, constantly sets in from east to west. Some of these large trees, that have been deprived of their bark by friction, are in such a state of preservation as even to form excellent building timber. If this floating wood, however, proceed from forests that are * Crantz, History of Greenland, t. I. p. 50—54. + Olafsen, Voyage to Iceland, t. I. p. 272. (In German.) |