The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

SPITZBERGEN. 175changes of temperature ; sailors falling into the water may with impunity let theirclothes dry on their hody ; and the place has heen so highly recommended formany complaints that sanatoria may possibly some day rise on the banks of theSpitzbergen creeks for the benefit of invalids from England and the continent.But however salubrious, the climate still remains cold, uncertain, changeable, andthe sky never continues cloudless for a single day. Winds, cooled by the ice-fields andglaciers, blow at short intervals, although a steady south wind prevails in HinlopenStrait. Snow may fall even in the " dog days : " Scoresby registered a temperatureof 15° Fahr. in June, 1810, and the glass has never been observed to rise higherthan on July 15th, 1861, when it marked 61° Fahr. In winter the mercury frequentlyfreezes, although travellers represent the mean temperature as relatively mild,owing to the prevalence of strong south winds during this season.The glass risesat times above freezing point in midwinter. But when the sun appears on thehorizon, gradually describing a wider circuit in the heavens, the cold grows moreintense, so that here, as in England, " the cold strengthens as the day lengthens." *At the southern extremity of Spitzbergen, in 76° 30' N. lat., the sun rises37° above the horizon, but in the Seven Islands 33° only, and although itremains for four months above the horizon, summer is soon followed by a winterof equal length, illumined only by the fitful glare of the northern lights.Underthe influence of the prevailing southern winds the aurora borealis is now continuous,but much fainter than in lower latitudes.Fierce storms, accompanied byforked lightnings, rending the welkin, are altogether unknown in these waters.In winter the various island groups are bound together by unbroken masses ofice, stretching for vast distances northwards, but limited on the west by the warmcurrents from the tropics. But even in summer all the coasts are at times iceboundand inaccessible to vessels, except through narrow passages opening hereand there between the ice-fields. The changeable temperature produced by theshifting currents of warm and cold water is also frequently attended by dense fogs,shrouding land and sea for days together. In August, 1875, Payer and Weyprechtremained enveloped for 354 hours, or over a fortnight, in one of these fogs,which convert day into night, and which prevail especially in Hinlopen Strait,between the great island and North-East Land.Beneath the pale, grey skies of Spitzbergen the flora is extremely poor, comparedeven with that of Novaya Zemlya. The only timber is the drift-wood thrownup, especially on the southern and northern shores, under the shelter of the islandsand headlands. There are even no shrubs, and nothing to recall the plants of thetemperate zone beyond two species of dwarf willow and the Empetrum nigrum.The prevailing vegetation consists of lichens and mosses, of which there arereckoned over 200 species. According to Heuglin there are 120 species ofphanerogamous plants, or three or four times more than in Iceland ; but Malmgren,who has devoted much time to the botany of these islands, mentions only60 flowering plants and 4 ferns.Such as it is, this flora belongs at once to the arctic zone and to Scandinavia,* Mean temperature in lat. IV 30' :—January, — 1°; July, 37°; year, 17° Fahr.