Let the reader fancy himself—should he be reading these pages on a warm summer’s day, the fancy will not be unpleasant!—let the reader fancy himself on board a well-found, stoutly-built whaling-vessel, and rapidly approaching the coast of Greenland. But the heavy mist hangs over the legend-haunted shores, and we can but catch the sound of the clanging surf as it rolls upon them. All around us spreads the mist,—dense, impenetrable. What is that before us? The dead white mass of an iceberg, slowly drifting with the current, and almost upon us before the look-out man discovered it. But the helm has been sharply handled; our good ship has put about; and we sail clear of the mighty pyramid. Fully one hundred and fifty feet high, we can assure you, and twice as broad at its base. A sudden break in the mist reveals its radiant spire, with white cloud-wreaths circling and dancing round it in the sunlight.

And now, as we steadily move forward, the fog is lifted up like a curtain, and before us, like a scene in a panorama, looms the Greenland coast in all its austere magnificence: yonder are its broad ice-filled valleys, its snow-clad ravines, its noble mountains, its iron-bound range of cliffs, its general aspect of solemn desolation.

Away over the westward sea fly the scattered vapours, disclosing iceberg after iceberg, like the magical towers in some of Turner’s pictures. We seem to have been drawn by some irresistible spell into a world of enchantment, and all the old Norse romance comes back upon the memory, with its picturesque associations. Yonder lies the Valhalla of the ancient ocean-rovers; yonder the dazzling city of the sun-god Freya, one of the most popular of the Scandinavian divinities, as well he might be; yonder the elfin caves of Alfheim; and Glitner, with its walls of gold and roofs of silver; and the radiant Gimele, the home of the blessed; and there, too, towering above the clouds, the bridge Bifrost, by which the heroes ascended from earth to heaven. Heimdall, who can see for fully a hundred leagues, as well by night as by day, stands sentinel upon it, prepared to sound his horn Gjallar, if intruders should attempt to cross it!

The sea is smooth as glass; not a ripple breaks the wonderful calmness of its surface. It is midnight, but in this strange Arctic world the sun still hangs close upon the northern horizon; the icebergs rear their dazzling crests around, like floating spires, and turrets, and many-towered minsters; the dark headlands are boldly outlined against the sky; and sea, and sky, and mountains, and icebergs are suffused in a wildly beautiful atmosphere of crimson, gold, and purple. The picture is like a poet’s vision; and so startlingly unreal, that it is difficult for the unaccustomed spectator to believe it other than an illusion.

We adopt the following description from the vivid language of Dr. Hayes, who displays a keen feeling for the beauties of the Polar world.

The air was warm, he says, almost as a summer’s night at home, and yet there were the icebergs and the bleak mountains, with which the fancy, in our own land of green hills and waving woods, can associate nothing but what is cold and repellent. Bright was the sky, and soft and strangely inspiring as the skies of Italy. The bergs had wholly lost their chilly aspect, and, glittering in the blaze of the brilliant heavens, seemed, in the distance, like masses of burnished metal or solid flame. Nearer at hand they were huge blocks of Parian marble, encrusted with colossal gems of pearl and opal. One in particular exhibited the perfection of grandeur. Its form was not unlike that of the Coliseum, and it lay so far away that half its height was buried beneath the line of blood-red waters. The sun, slow moving along its path of glory, passed behind it, and the old Roman ruin seemed suddenly to break into flame.

Nothing, indeed, but the pencil of the artist could depict the wonderful richness of this combined landscape and seascape. Church, in his great picture of “The Icebergs,” has grandly exhibited a scene not unlike that we have attempted to describe.

In the shadows of the bergs the water was a rich green, and nothing could be more soft and tender than the gradations of colour made by the sea shoaling on the sloping tongues of some of these floating masses. The tint increased in intensity where the ice overhung the waters, and a deep cavern in one of them exhibited the solid colour of the malachite mingled with the transparency of the emerald, while, in strange contrast, a broad belt of cobalt blue shot diagonally through its body.

The enchantment of the scene was heightened by a thousand little cascades which flashed into the sea from the icebergs, the water being discharged from basins of melted snow and ice which tranquilly reposed far up in the hollows of their topmost surface. From other bergs large boulders were occasionally detached, and these plunged into the water with a deafening din, while the roll and rush of the ocean resounded like the music of a solemn dirge through their broken archways.

The contrasts and combinations of colour in the Polar world are, indeed, among its particular attractions, and of their kind they cannot be surpassed or imitated even in the gorgeous realms of the Tropics. The pale azure gleam of the ice, the dazzling whiteness of the snow, the vivid verdure of the sunlit plains, the deep emerald tints, crossed with sapphire and ultramarine, of the waters, would in themselves afford a multiplicity of rich and beautiful effects; but to these we must add the magical influences of the coruscations of the Arctic heavens, with the glories of the midnight sun and the wonders of the Aurora.

Even moonlight in the Polar world is unlike moonlight anywhere else; it has a character all its own,—strange, weird, supernatural. Night after night the sky will be free from cloud or shadow, and the radiant stars shine out with a singular intensity, seeming to cut the air like keen swords. The moonbeams are thrown back with a pale lustre by ice-floe and glacier and snow-drift, and the only relief to the brightness is where the dark cliffs throw a shadow over the landscape. Gloriously beautiful look the snow-clad mountains, as the moonlight pours upon them its serene splendour, interrupted only by the occasional passage of a wreath of mist, which is soon transformed into sparkling silver. The whole scene produces an impression of awe on the mind of the thoughtful spectator, and he feels as if brought face to face with the visible presence of another world.

The prolonged winter night is in itself well calculated to affect the imagination of the European. He reads of it in travels and books of astronomy; but to know what it is, and what it means, he must submit himself to its influence,—he must “winter” in the Polar Regions. Not to see sunrise and sunset, and the changes they bring with them, day after day, enlivening, inspiriting, strengthening, is felt at first as an intolerable burden. The stars shining at all hours with equal brilliancy, and the lasting darkness which reigns for twenty days of each winter month when the moon is below the horizon, become a weariness and a discomfort. The traveller longs for the reappearance of the moon; and yet before she has run her ten days’ course, he feels fatigued by the uniform illumination.

But sometimes a relief is supplied by the phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis. We inhabitants of the United Kingdom know something of the rare beauty of the “northern lights,” when the heavens kindle with a mysterious play of colours which reminds us of the strange weird radiance that occasionally kindles in our dreams; yet these are poor and trivial when compared with the auroral display. Let us endeavour to realize it from the glowing description painted by one of the most eloquent and observant of Arctic explorers.

He was groping his way among the ice-hummocks, in the deep obscurity of the mid-winter, when suddenly a bright ray darted up from behind the black cloud which lay low down on the horizon before him. It lasted but an instant, and, having filled the air with a strange illumination, it died away, leaving the darkness even greater darkness than before. Presently an arc of coloured light sprang across the sky, and the aurora became gradually more fixed. The space enclosed by the arc was very dark, and was filled with the cloud. The play of the rays which rose from its gradually brightening border was for some time very capricious, modifying the burst of flame from what seemed a conflagration of the heavens to the soft glow of early morn.

Gradually the light grew more and more intense, and from irregular bursts it settled into an almost steady sheet of splendour. This sheet, however, was far from uniform, and may best be described as “a flood of mingling and variously-tinted streaks.”

The exhibition, at first tame and quiet, developed by degrees into startling brilliancy. The broad dome of night seemed all ablaze. Lurid fires, fiercer than those which reddened the heavens from burning Troy, flashed angrily across the zenith. The stars waned before the marvellous outburst, and seemed to recede further and further from the Earth; “as when the chariot of the sun, driven by Phaeton, and carried from its beaten track by the ungovernable steeds, rushed madly through the skies, parching the world and withering the constellations. The gentle Andromeda flies trembling from the flame; Perseus, with his flashing sword and Gorgon shield, retreats in fear; the Pole-Star is chased from the night; and the Great Bear, faithful sentinel of the North, quits his guardian watch, following the feeble trail.”

The colour of the light was chiefly red, but this was not permanent, and every hue mingled in the wonderful display.

Blue and yellow streamers shot athwart the lurid fire; and, sometimes starting side by side from the wide expanse of the illumined arc, they melted into each other, and flung a weird glare of green over the landscape.

Again this green overcame the red; blue and yellow blended with each other in their swift flight; violet-tinted arrows flashed through a broad glow of orange, and countless tongues of white flame, formed of these uniting streams, rushed aloft and clasped the skies. The effect of the many-coloured lustre upon the surrounding objects was singularly wonderful. The weird forms of innumerable icebergs, singly and in clusters, loomed above the sea, and around their summits hovered the strange gleam, like the fires of Vesuvius over the villas and temples of Pompeii. All along the white surface of the frozen sea, upon the mountain-peaks and the lofty cliffs, the light glowed and dimmed and glowed again, as if the air were filled with graveyard meteors, flitting wildly above some vast illimitable city of the dead. The scene was noiseless, yet the senses were deceived, for sounds not of earth or sea seemed to follow the swift coruscations, and to fall upon the ear like

Though the details, so to speak, are not always the same, the general character of the aurora changes very slightly, and, from a comparison of numerous accounts, the gradation of the phenomenon would seem to be as follows:—

The sky slowly assumes a tint of brown, on which, as on a background, is soon developed a nebulous segment, bordered by a spacious arc of dazzling whiteness, which seems incessantly agitated by a tremulous motion. From this arc an incredible number of shafts and rays of light leap upwards to the zenith. These luminous columns pass through all the hues of the rainbow,—from softest violet and intensest sapphire to green and purple-red. Sometimes the rays issue from the resplendent arc mingled with darker flashes; sometimes they rise simultaneously at different points of the horizon, and unite in one broad sea of flame pervaded by rapid undulations. On other occasions it would seem as if invisible hands were unfurling fiery dazzling banners, to stream, like meteors, in the troubled air. A kind of canopy, of soft and tranquil light, which is known as the corona, indicates the close of the marvellous exhibition; and shortly after its appearance the luminous rays begin to decrease in splendour, the richly-coloured arcs dissolve and die out, and soon of all the gorgeous spectacle nothing remains but a whitish cloudy haze in those parts of the firmament which, but a few minutes before, blazed with the mysterious fires of the aurora borealis.

The arc of the aurora is only part of a broad circle of light, which is elevated considerably above the surface of our globe, and the centre of which is situated in the vicinity of the Pole. It is not difficult, therefore, to account for the different aspects under which it is presented to observers placed at different angles to the focus of the display. A person some degrees south of the ring necessarily sees but a very small arc of it towards the north, owing to the interposition of the earth between him and it; if he stood nearer the north, the arc would appear larger and higher; if immediately below it, he would see it apparently traversing the zenith; or if within the ring, and still further north, he would see it culminating in the south. It has been supposed that the centre of the ring corresponds with the magnetic north pole in the island of Boothia Felix.

Generally the phenomenon lasts for several hours, and at times it will be varied by peculiar features. Now it will seem to present the hemispherical segment of a colossal wheel; now it will wave and droop like a rich tapestry of many-coloured light, in a thousand prismatic folds; and now it exhibits the array of innumerable dazzling streamers, waving in the dark and intense sky.

The arc varies in elevation, but is seldom more than ninety miles above the terrestrial surface. Its diameter, however, must be enormous, for it has been known to extend southward to Italy, and has been simultaneously visible in Sardinia, Connecticut, and at New Orleans.

According to some authorities, the phenomenon is accompanied by noises resembling the discharge of fireworks, or the crackling of silk when one piece is folded over another; but this statement is discredited by the most trustworthy observers.

Mrs. Somerville’s description is worth quoting, as taking up more emphatically some points to which we have already alluded:—

The aurora, she says, is decidedly an electrical (or, more strictly speaking, a magneto-electrical) phenomenon. It generally appears soon after sunset in the form of a luminous arc stretching more or less from east to west, the most elevated point being always in the magnetic meridian of the place of the observer; across the arc the coruscations are rapid, vivid, and of various colours, darting like lightning to the zenith, and at the same time flitting laterally with incessant velocity. The brightness of the rays varies in an instant; they sometimes surpass the splendour of stars of the first magnitude, and often exhibit colours of admirable transparency,—blood-red at the base, emerald-green in the middle, and clear yellow towards their extremity. Sometimes one, and sometimes a quick succession of luminous currents run from one end of the arc or bow to the other, so that the rays rapidly increase in brightness; but it is impossible to say whether the coruscations themselves are actually affected by a horizontal motion of translation, or whether the more vivid light is conveyed from ray to ray. The rays occasionally dart far past the zenith, vanish, suddenly reappear, and, being joined by others from the arc, form a magnificent corona or immense dome of light. The segment of the sky below the arc is quite black, as if formed by dense clouds; yet M. Struve is said to have seen stars in it, and so it would appear that the blackness of which several observers speak must be the effect of contrast. The lower edge of the arc is evenly defined; its upper margin is fringed by the coruscations, their convergence towards the north, and that of the arc itself, being probably an effect of perspective.

The aurora exercises a remarkable influence on the magnetic needle, even in places where the display is not visible. Its vibrations seem to be slower or quicker according as the auroral light is quiescent or in motion, and the variations of the compass during the day show that the aurora is not peculiar to night. It has been ascertained by careful observations that the disturbances of the magnetic needle and the auroral displays were simultaneous at Toronto, in Canada, on thirteen days out of twenty-four, the remaining days having been clouded; and contemporaneous observations show that in these thirteen days there were also magnetic disturbances at Prague and Tasmania; so that the occurrence of auroral phenomena at Toronto on these occasions may be viewed as a local manifestation connected with magnetic effects, which, whatever may have been their origin, probably prevailed on the same day over the whole surface of the globe.

Among the atmospheric phenomena of the outer world we are justified in reckoning the Winds, which are remarkable for their variability. Their force is considerably diminished when they pass over a wide surface of ice; sometimes the ice seems even to beat back the breeze, and turn it in a contrary direction. The warm airs from the south grow cool as they sweep across the frozen expanse, and give up their moisture in the form of snow. In a region so bleak and chill it is not often that clouds are created, the atmospheric vapours being condensed into snow or hail without passing through any intermediate condition.

Whirlwinds of frozen snow are formidable enemies to the seaman forced to traverse the ice on foot, or in a sledge drawn by Eskimo dogs. Dense showers lash and sting the unfortunate traveller’s face, penetrate his mouth and nostrils, freeze together his very eyelids, and almost blind him. His skin assumes a bluish tint, and burns as if scarred by the keen thongs of a knout.

An optical illusion of frequent occurrence in the Polar Regions makes objects appear of dimensions much larger than they really possess. A fox assumes the proportions of a bear; low banks of ice are elevated into lofty mountains. The eye is fatigued by dwelling upon the horizon of lands which are never approached. Just as in the sandy deserts of the Sahara the distances of real objects are apparently diminished, so the Arctic explorer, misled by the aërial illusion, advances towards a goal which seems always near at hand, but is never attained.

Another source of error, common both to the Arctic and the Tropical deserts, is the mirage, a phenomenon of refraction, which represents as suspended in air the images of remote objects, and thus gives rise to the most curious illusions and fantastic scenes. Dr. Scoresby one day perceived in the air the reversed representation of a ship which he recognized as the Fame, commanded by his father. He afterwards discovered that it had been lying moored in a creek about ten leagues from the point where the mirage had played with his imagination.

Again, in approaching a field of ice or snow, the traveller invariably descries a belt of resplendent white immediately above the horizon. This is known as the “ice-blink,” and it reveals to the Arctic navigator beforehand the character of the ice he is approaching. At times, too, a range of icebergs, or of broken masses of ice, will be reflected in colossal shadows on the sky, with a strange and even weird effect.

But, after all, the special distinction between the Arctic lands and the other regions of the globe is their long day and longer night. Describing an immense spiral curve upon the horizon, the sun gradually mounts to 30°, the highest point of its course; then, in the same manner, it returns towards the horizon, and bids farewell to the wildernesses of the North, slowly passing away behind the veil of a gloomy and ghastly twilight.

When the navigator, says Captain Parry, finds himself for the first time buried in the silent shadows of the Arctic night, he cannot conquer an involuntary emotion of dread; he feels transported out of the sphere of ordinary, commonplace existence. The deadly and sombre deserts of the Pole seem like those uncreated voids which Milton has placed between the realms of life and death. The very animals are affected by the profound melancholy which saddens the face of Nature.

Who can read without emotion the following passages from Dr. Kane’s Journal?—

“October 28, Friday.—The moon has reached her greatest northern declination of about 25° 35’. She is a glorious object; sweeping around the heavens, at the lowest part of her curve she is still 14° above the horizon. For eight days she has been making her circuit with nearly unvarying brightness. It is one of those sparkling nights that bring back the memory of sleigh-bells and songs and glad communings of hearts in lands that are far away.

“The weather outside is at 25° below zero.”

A few days later, and the heroic explorer writes:—

“November 7, Monday.—The darkness is coming on with insidious steadiness, and its advances can be perceived only by comparing one day with its fellow of some time back. We still read the thermometer at noonday without a light, and the black masses of the hills are plain for about five hours with their glaring patches of snow; but all the rest is darkness. Lanterns are always on the spar-deck, and the lard-lamps never extinguished below. The stars of the sixth magnitude shine out at noonday.

“Our darkness has ninety days to run before we shall get back again even to the contested twilight of to-day. Altogether, our winter will have been sunless for one hundred and forty days.”

Here is another significant passage; yet all its significance can scarcely be appreciated by the dwellers in temperate climes:—

“November 27, Sunday.—The thermometer was in the neighbourhood of 40° below zero, and the day was too dark to read at noon.”

“December 15, Thursday.—We have lost the last vestige of our mid-day twilight. We cannot see print, and hardly paper: the fingers cannot be counted a foot from the eyes. Noonday and midnight are alike; and, except a vague glimmer on the sky that seems to define the hill outlines to the south, we have nothing to tell us that this Arctic world of ours has a sun.”

On the 11th of January (1854), Dr. Kane’s thermometer stood at 49° below zero; and on the 20th the range of those at the observatory was at -64° to -67°. On the 5th of February they began to show an unexampled temperature. They ranged from 60° to 75° below zero, and one very admirable instrument on the taffrail of the brig stood at -65°. The reduced mean of the best spirit-standards gave -67°, or 97° below the freezing-point of water.

At these temperatures chloric ether became solid, and carefully prepared chloroform exhibited a granular film or pellicle on its surface. Spirit of naphtha froze at -54°, and oil of sassafras at -49°. The oil of winter-green assumes a flocculent appearance at -56°, and solid at -63° and -65°.

Some further details, borrowed from Dr. Kane’s experiences, will illustrate still more powerfully the singular atmospheric conditions of the Arctic winter.

The exhalations from the surface of the body invested any exposed or partially-clad part with a wreath of vapour. The air had a perceptible pungency when inspired, but Dr. Kane did not undergo the painful sensation described by some Siberian travellers. When breathed for any length of time it imparted a sensation of dryness to the air-passages; and Dr. Kane observed that all his party, as it were involuntarily, breathed gradually, and with compressed lips.

It was at noon on the 21st of January that the first glimmer of returning light became visible, the southern horizon being touched for a short time with a distinct orange hue. The sun had, perhaps, afforded them a kind of illumination before, but if so, it was not to be distinguished from the “cold light of stars.” They had been nearing the sunshine for thirty-two days, and had just reached that degree of mitigated darkness which made the extreme midnight of Sir Edward Parry in lat. 74° 47’.

We have already alluded to the depressing influence exercised by the prolonged and intense darkness of the Arctic night, and we have referred to the singular effect it has upon animals. Dr. Kane’s dogs, though most of them were natives of the Arctic Circle, proved unable to bear up against it. Most of them died from an anomalous form of disease, to which the absence of light would seem to have contributed as much as the extreme cold. This circumstance seems worthy of fuller notice, and we quote, therefore, Dr. Kane’s observation upon it:—

“January 20.—This morning at five o’clock—for I am so afflicted with the insomnium of this eternal night, that I rise at any time between midnight and noon—I went upon deck. It was absolutely dark, the cold not permitting a swinging lamp. There was not a glimmer came to me through the ice-crusted window-panes of the cabin. While I was feeling my way, half puzzled as to the best method of steering clear of whatever might be before me, two of my Newfoundland dogs put their cold noses against my hand, and instantly commenced the most exuberant antics of satisfaction. It then occurred to me how very dreary and forlorn must these poor animals be, at atmospheres +10° in-doors and -50° without,—living in darkness, howling at an accidental light, as if it reminded them of the moon,—and with nothing, either of instinct or sensation, to tell them of the passing hours, or to explain the long-lost daylight.”

The effect of the prolonged darkness upon these animals was most extraordinary. Every attention was paid to their wants; they were kept below, tended, fed, cleansed, caressed, and doctored; still they grew worse and worse. Strange to say, their disease was as clearly mental as in the case of any human being. There was no physical disorganization; they ate voraciously; they slept soundly, they retained their strength. But first they were stricken by epilepsy, and this was followed by true lunacy. They barked frenziedly at nothing; they walked in straight and curved lines with anxious and unwearying perseverance. They fawned on the seamen, but without seeming to appreciate any caresses bestowed upon them; pushing their head against the friend who noticed them, or oscillating with a strange pantomime of fear. Their most intelligent actions seemed of an automatic character; sometimes they clawed at their masters, as if seeking to burrow into their seal-skins; sometimes they preserved for hours a moody silence, and then started off howling, as if pursued, and ran to and fro for a considerable period.

When spring returned Dr. Kane had to mourn the loss of nine splendid Newfoundland and thirty-five Eskimo dogs; of the whole pack only six survived, and one of these was unfit for draught.

Having dwelt at some length on the characteristics of the Arctic winter, we now turn to consider those of the Arctic spring. This begins in April, but does not exhibit itself in all the freshness of its beauty until May. The temperature rises daily in the interval; the winter fall of snow, which has so long shrouded the gaunt hills and lain upon the valleys, rolls up before the rays of the rising sun; and the melted snow pours in noisy torrents and flashing cascades through the rugged ravines and over the dark sides of the lofty cliffs: everywhere the air resounds with the din of falling waters. Early in June the traveller sees with delight the signs of returning vegetation. The willow-stems grow green with the fresh and living sap; mosses, and poppies, and saxifrages, and the cochlearia, with other hardy plants, begin to sprout; the welcome whirr of wings is brought upon the breeze; the cliffs are alive with the little auks; flocks of stately eider-ducks sail into the creeks and sounds; the graceful terns scream and dart over the sea; the burgomasters and the gyrfalcons move to and fro with greater dignity; the long-tailed duck fills the echoes with its shrill voice; the snipes hover about the fresh-water pools; the sparrows chirp from rock to rock; long lines of cackling geese sail in the blue clearness overhead on their way to a remoter north; the walrus and the seal bask on the ice-floes which have broken up into small rafts, and drift lazily with the currents; and a fleet of icebergs move southwards in solemn and stately procession, their spires and towers flashing and coruscating in the sunlight.

We transcribe a sketch of a spring landscape in the Polar world from the pages of Dr. Hayes:—

We arrived at the lake, he says, in the midst of a very enlivening scene. The snow had mainly disappeared from the valley, and, although no flowers had yet appeared, the early vegetation was covering the banks with green, and the feeble growths opened their little leaves almost under the very snow, and stood alive and fresh in the frozen turf, looking as glad of the spring as their more ambitious cousins of the warm South. Numerous small herds of reindeer had come down from the mountains to fatten on this newly budding life. Gushing rivulets and fantastic waterfalls mingled their pleasant music with the ceaseless hum of birds, myriads of which sat upon the rocks of the hill-side, or were perched upon the cliffs, or sailed through the air in swarms so thick that they seemed like a dark cloud passing before the sun. These birds were the little auk, a water-fowl not larger than a quail. The swift flutter of their wings and their constant cry filled the air with a roar like that of a storm advancing among the forest trees. The valley was glowing with the sunlight of the early morning, which streamed in over the glacier, and robed hill, mountain, and plain in brightness.

Spring passes into summer, and all nature seems endowed with a new life. The death-like silence, the oppressive darkness, the sense of fear and despondency, all have passed away; and earth and water echo with cheerful voices, the landscape is bathed in a glorious radiance, the human soul is conscious of a sentiment of hope and expectation. The winter is past and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come. The snow has melted from the hills, and the streams run with a merry music, and the scanty flora of the far northern world attains its full development. By day and night the sun pours forth its invigorating rays, and even the butterfly is encouraged to sport among the blossoms. The Aurora no longer exhibits its many-coloured fires, and the sky is as clear and cloudless as in genial Italy. But this season of life and warmth is of short duration, and when July has passed the sun begins to sink lower and lower, as if to visit another world; a shadow gradually steals over the sky; winds blow fiercely, and bring with them blinding showers of sleet and icicles; the fountains and the streams cease their pleasant flow; the broad crust of ice spreads over the imprisoned sea; the snow-mantle rests on the hill-sides and the valleys; the birds wing their way to the warmer South; and the Polar world is once more given over to the silence, the loneliness, and the gloom of the long Arctic night.

Turning our attention now to the “starry heavens,” we observe that conspicuous among the glorious host is the North Star, which, from earliest times, has been the friend and guide of the navigator.

The Pole-Star, or Polaris, is the star α in the constellation of Ursa Minor, and is the nearest large star to the north pole of the celestial equator. We say the “nearest,” because it does not actually mark the position of the pole, but is about 1° 30’ from it. Owing, however, to the motion of the pole of the celestial equator round that of the ecliptic, it will, in about 2000 A.D., approach within 28’ of the north pole; but after reaching this point of approximation it will begin to recede. At the time of Hipparchus it was 12° distant from it (that is, in 156 B.C.); in 1785, 2° 2’. You may easily find its place in the “stellar firmament,” for a line drawn between the stars α and β (hence called the “Pointers”) of the constellation Ursa Major, or the Great Bear, and produced in a northerly direction for about four and a half times its own length, will almost touch the Pole-Star. Two thousand years this post of honour, so to speak, was occupied by the star β of Ursa Major; while, in about twelve thousand years, it will be occupied by the star Vega in Lyra, which will be within 5° of the north pole.

The constellation of Ursa Major is always above the horizon of Europe, and hence it has been an object of curiosity to its inhabitants from the remotest antiquity. Our readers may easily recognize it by three stars which form a triangle in its tail, while four more form a quadrangle in the body of the imaginary bear. In the triangle, the first star at the tip of the tail is Benetnasch of the second magnitude; the second, Mizar; and the third, Alioth. In the quadrangle, the first star at the root of the tail is named Megrez; the second below it, Phad; the third, in a horizontal direction, Merak; and the fourth, above the latter, Dubhe, of the first magnitude.

In Ursa Minor the only conspicuous star is Polaris, of which we have recently spoken.

We subjoin a list of the northern constellations, including the names of those who formed them, the number of their visible stars, and the names of the most important and conspicuous.

NORTHERN CONSTELLATIONS.

A few remarks in reference to some of these constellations, and the glorious orbs which they help to indicate to mortal eyes, may fitly close this chapter.

We have already alluded to Ursa Major, which forms one of the most conspicuous objects of the northern heavens. It has borne different names, at different times, and among different peoples. It was the Ἄρκτος μεγάλη of the Greeks; the “Septem triones” of the Latins. It is known in some parts as David’s Chariot; the Chinese call it, Tcheou-pey.

Night and day this constellation watches above the northern horizon, revolving, with slow and majestic march, around Polaris, in four and twenty hours. The quadrangle of stars in the body of the Great Bear forms the wheels of the chariot; the triangle in its tail, the chariot-pole. Above the second of the three latter shines the small star Alcor, also named the Horseman. The Arabs call it Saidak, or “the Test,” because they use it to try the range and strength of a person’s vision.

This brilliant northern constellation, composed, with the exception of δ, of stars of the second magnitude, has frequently been celebrated by poets. We may paraphrase, for the advantage of our readers, a glowing apostrophe from the pen of the American Ware:—

With what grand and majestic steps, he says, it moves forward in its eternal circle, following among the stars its regal way in a slow and silent splendour! Mighty creation, I salute thee! I love to see thee wandering in the shining paths like a giant proud of his strong girdle—severe, indefatigable, resolved—whose feet never lag in the road which lies before them. Other tribes abandon their nocturnal course and rest their weary orbs under the waves; but thou, thou never closest thy burning eyes, and never suspendest thy determined steps. Forward, ever forward! While systems change, and suns retire, and worlds fall to sleep and awake again, thou pursuest thy endless march. The near horizon attempts to check thee, but in vain. A watchful sentinel, thou never quittest thy age-long duty; but, without allowing thyself to be surprised by sleep, thou guardest the fixed light of the universe, and preventest the north from ever forgetting its place.

Seven stars dwell in that shining company; the eye embraces them all at a single glance; their distances from one another, however, are not less than the distance of each from Earth. And this again is the reciprocal distance of the celestial centres or foci. From depths of heaven, unexplored by thought, the piercing rays dart across the void, revealing to our senses innumerable worlds and systems. Let us arm our vision with the telescope, and let us survey the firmament. The skies open wide; a shower of sparkling fires descends upon our head; the stars close up their ranks, are condensed in regions so remote that their swift rays (swifter than aught else in creation) must travel for centuries before they can reach our Earth. Earth, sun, and ye constellations, what are ye among this infinite immensity and the multitude of the Divine works!

If we face towards the Pole-Star, which, as we have seen, preserves its place in the centre of the northern region of the sky, we have the south behind us, the east is on our right, the west upon our left. All the stars revolving round the Pole-Star, from right to left, should be recognized according to their mutual relations rather than referred to the cardinal points. On the other side of Polaris, as compared with the Great Bear, we find another constellation which is easily recognized. If from the central star δ we carry a line to the Pole, and then prolong it for an equal distance, we traverse the constellation of Cassiopeia, composed of five stars of the third magnitude, disposed somewhat like the outer jambs of the letter M. The small star χ, terminating the square, gives it also the form of a chair. This group occupies every possible situation in revolving round the Pole, being at one time above it, at another below, now on the left, and then on the right; but it is always readily found, because, like Ursa Major, to which it is invariably opposite, it never sets. The Pole-Star is the axle round which these two constellations revolve.

If we now draw, from the stars α and δ in Ursa Major, two lines meeting at the Pole, and afterwards extend them beyond Cassiopeia, they will abut on the square of Pegasus, which is bounded on one of its sides by a group, or series, of three stars resembling the triangle in Ursa Major. These three belong to the constellation of Andromeda (α, β, and γ), and themselves abut on another three-orbed group, that of Perseus.

The last star in the square of Perseus is also the first α of Andromeda: the other three are named, Algenib, γ; Markab, α; and Scheat, β. To the north of Andromeda β, and near a small star, ν, the Arctic traveller will discern an oblong nebula, which may be compared to the light of a taper seen through a sheet of horn; this is the first nebula to which any allusion occurs in the annals of astronomy. In Perseus α, an orb of great brilliancy, on the prolonged plane of the three principal stars of Andromeda, shines with steady lustre between two less dazzling spheres, and forms in conjunction with them a concave arc very easily distinguished. Of this arc we may avail ourselves as a new point of departure. By prolonging it in the direction of δ, we come to a very bright star of the first magnitude, the Goat. By forming a right angle to this prolongation in a southerly direction we come to that glorious mass of stars, not very frequently above the Polar horizon, the Pleiads. These were held in evil repute among the ancients. Their appearance was supposed to be ominous of violent storms, and Valerius Flaccus speaks of them as fatal to ships.