respectable quarto volume, which contains a large fund of scientifical and professional information.

Our young hero had recently felt the enervating effects of a burning sun, in the torrid regions of the west; he had now speedily to encounter the benumbing influence of a frozen atmosphere, in the torpid confines of the north.

On the 13th of June, in the evening, land was first seen by the Carcass: it was light enough to read on deck all night; and, the next day, some Shetland boats came on board with fish.

After proceeding along the coast of Spitsbergen, and ranging between the land and the ice several days, at half past four, in the afternoon of the 7th of July, the ice setting very close, they ran between two pieces, and were suddenly stopped. The ice, indeed, now set so fast down, that they were soon fixed; and obliged to heave through, for two hours, with ice-anchors from each quarter, nor were they quite out of the ice till midnight.

On the 25th, the Carcass being becalmed very near Moffen Island, Captain Lutwidge took the opportunity of obtaining its exact extent, which he communicated to Captain Phipps. The master had been on shore for the purpose of this survey; and with him, doubtless, our young adventurer. They found the island to be nearly of a round form, about two miles in diameter; with a lake or large pond of water in the middle, all frozen over, except thirty or forty yards round the edge of it, which was water, with loose pieces of broken ice, and so shallow, that they walked through it, and went over on the solid ice. The ground between the sea and the pond was from half a cable's length to a quarter of a mile broad, and the whole island appeared covered with gravel and small stones, without the smallest verdure or vegetation of any kind. They met with only one piece of drift wood, about three fathom long, with a root on it, and as thick as the Carcass's mizen mast; which had been thrown up over the high part of the land, and lay on the declivity towards the pond. They saw three bears; and a number of wild ducks, geese, and other sea fowls, with birds-nests all over the island.

Off this island, the survey of which must have afforded a high treat to Horatio, one of the Carcass's boats were attacked by a herd of sea-horses, as they are corruptly called by the sailors, from the Russian name of morses, which were with difficulty driven away. These marine animals are the Trichecus Rosmarus of Linnæus, and the Arctic Walrus of Pennant and most other naturalists.

On another occasion, two officers, in a boat belonging to the Racehorse, having fired at and wounded one of these animals, it immediately dived, and brought up a number of others; which all joined in an attack on the boat, wresting an oar from one of the men, and were with difficulty prevented from staving or oversetting the boat: but a boat from the Carcass, guided by the intrepid young coxswain, soon arrived, and effectually dispersed them.

This was on the 29th of July, near what they called the Low Island; of which Dr. Irving, who went on the party to visit it, gives in substance the following account. On the shore were several large fir-trees lying sixteen or eighteen feet above the level of the sea: some of these trees were seventy feet long, and had been torn up by the roots; others cut down by the axe, and notched for twelve feet lengths. This timber was not in the least decayed, nor the strokes of the axe at all defaced. There were, likewise, some pipe-staves, and wood fashioned for use. The bench was formed of old timber, sand, and whale-bones. The island, which is flat, was found to be about seven miles long. It was formed chiefly of stones from eighteen to thirty inches over, many of them hexagons, and commodiously placed for walking on. The middle of the island was covered with moss, scurvy-grass, sorrel, and a few ranunculuses then in flower. Two reindeer were feeding on the moss: one of these they killed, and found the venison to be fat and of high flavour. They saw a light grey fox; and a spotted white and black animal, somewhat larger than the weasel, with short ears, and a long tail. The island abounds with small snipes, similar to the English jack-snipe. The ducks were hatching their eggs, and many wild geese feeding by the water-side.

From this pleasing scene, however, they found themselves, the next day, very differently situated.

On the 30th of July, in the afternoon, they were among what are called the Seven Islands, and in the ice, with no appearance of any opening for the ships. Between eleven and twelve at night, Mr. Crane, master of the Racehorse, was dispatched by Captain Phipps, in the four-oared boat, to try if he could get through, and find an opening for the ship which might afford a prospect of getting farther; with directions, if he could reach the shore, to go up one of the mountains, in order to discover the state of the ice to the eastward and northward. Captain Lutwidge, who had employed a boat, conducted by his young coxswain for the same purpose, joined Mr. Crane on shore, and they proceeded to ascend a high mountain, from whence the prospect extended ten or twelve leagues to the east and north-east, over one continued plain of smooth ice, bounded only by the horizon. They also saw land stretching to the south-east, laid down in the Dutch charts as islands: and now plainly discovered that the main body of ice, which the ships had traced from west to east, actually joined to these islands; and, from them, to what is called the north-east land. In returning to their ships, about seven in the morning, round which the ice had, in their absence, so completely got, that with their ice-anchors out they had moored alongside a field of it, they were frequently obliged to haul the boats, over ice which had closed since they went, to other openings.

At nine o'clock, in the morning, the 31st, having a light breeze to the eastward, they cast off, and endeavoured to force through the ice; but, at noon, finding it too close to proceed, again moored to a field. In the afternoon they filled their casks with fresh water from the ice, which they found very pure and soft. The field of ice, to which both vessels were now moored, was found to be eight yards ten inches thick at one end, and seven yards eleven inches at the other. The ice closed fast, and was all round the ships; no opening to be any where seen, except a hole of about a mile and a half, where the ships lay fast to the ice, with ice-anchors. It being calm the greater part of the day, and the weather very fine, the ships companies amused themselves, almost the whole time, in playing on the ice. The pilots, however, finding themselves much farther than they had ever before penetrated, and reflecting on the advanced state of the season, seemed alarmed with apprehensions of being beset.

On the 1st of August, the ice pressed in so fast, that there was now not the smallest opening. The two ships were within less than two lengths of each other, neither of them having room to turn. The ice, which had been all flat the day before, and almost level with the water's edge, was now in many places forced higher than the main-yard by the pieces squeezing together. Their latitude this day at noon, by the double altitude, was eighty degrees thirty-seven minutes.

On the 2d, it was thick, foggy, wet weather, the wind blowing fresh to the westward; but, though the ice immediately about the ships seemed rather looser than the day before, it hourly set in again so fast, that there appeared no probability of getting the ships out, without a strong east or north-east wind.

On the 3d, the weather being very fine, clear, and calm, they perceived that the ships had been driven far to the eastward. The ice, however, was much closer than before; and the passage by which they had come in from the westward quite closed up, with no open water any