gradually expanded into a thriving little town of about 3,000 inhabitants, along the shore opposite the mainland. Its staple exports are dried and salted cod, and train-oil. The livers of the cod are put in open barrels and placed in the sun, and the melted portion which rises to the surface is skimmed off, being the purest oil. The coarse refuse is boiled in great iron pots by the side of the sea, and yields the common train-oil.' The muscular matter which remains is collected into barrels and exported as a powerful manure; some of it is sent to England.

The town consists mainly of one long straggling street, following the windings of the shore, and has a picturesque appearance from the harbour. The houses are all of wood painted with lively colours, and the roofs mostly covered with grass, diversified with bright clusters of yellow and white flowers, look pretty in summer.

Tromsö has a Latin school, and even boasts of a newspaper, the Tromsö Tidende et Blad for Nordland og Finmarken' (The Tromsö Gazette, a paper for Nordland and Finmark). This paper is published twice a week, and as only one mail arrives at Tromsö every three weeks, the foreign news is given by instalments, spreading over six successive numbers, until a fresh despatch arrives.

The island of Tromsö is beautifully situated, being on all sides environed by mountains, so that it seems to lie in the midst of a huge salt-lake. Its surface rises in gentle slopes to a tolerable elevation, and no other Arctic isle contains richer pasturage, and dwarf plantations of greater luxuriance. Many meadows are yellow with buttercups and picturesque underwood, and the heathy hills are covered with shrubs, bearing bright berries of many hues.

The pride of the Tromsöites in their island and town, and their profound attachment to it, are remarkable. No Swiss can be more enthusiastically bound to his mountains and vales, than they are to their circumscribed domain.

To the north of Tromsö lies the broad and deep Altenfjord, whose borders are studded with numerous dwellings, and where the botanist meets with a vegetation that may well raise his astonishment in so high a latitude. Here the common birch-tree grows 1,450 feet, and the Vaccinium myr

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tillus 2,030 feet above the level of the sea; the dwarf birch (Betula nana) still vegetates at a height of 2,740 feet, and the Arctic willow is even found as high as 3,500 feet, up to the limits of perennial snow.

Alten is moreover celebrated through its copper mines. A piece of ore having been found by a Lap-woman in the year 1825, accidentally fell into the hands of Mr. Crowe, an English merchant in Hammerfest. This gentleman immediately took measures for obtaining a privilege from government for the working of the mines, and all preliminaries being arranged, set off for London, where he founded a company, with a capital of 75,000l. When Marmier visited the Altenfjord in 1842, more than 1,100 workmen were employed in these most northerly mining works of the world, and not seldom more than ten English vessels at a time were busy unloading coals at Kaafjord for the smelting of New copper works had recently been opened on the opposite side of the bay at Raipass-and since then the establishment has considerably increased.

the ores.

Hammerfest, the capital of Finmark, situated on the west side of the island of Hvalö, in 70° 39′ 15′′, is the most northern town in the world. Half a century since, it had but 44 inhabitants; at present its population amounts to 1,200. As at Tromsö, very many of the houses, forming one long street winding round the shore, have grass sown on their roofs, which gives the latter the appearance of little plots of meadows. With us the expression, he sleeps with grass above his head' is equivalent to saying he is in his grave;' but here it may only mean that he sleeps beneath the verdant roof of his daily home. Many large warehouses are built on piles projecting into the water, with landing quays before them; and numerous ranges of open sheds are filled with reindeer skins, wolf and bear skins, walrus tusks, reindeer horns, train-oil and dried fish, ready for exportation. The chief home traffic of Hammerfest consists in barter with the Laps, who exchange their reindeer skins for brandy, tobacco, hardware, and cloth. Some enterprising merchants annually fit out vessels for walrus and seal-hunting at Spitzbergen and Bear Island, but the principal trade is with Archangel, and is carried on entirely in lodjes or White Sea ships,

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with three single upright masts, each hoisting a huge trysail. These vessels supply Hammerfest with Russian rye, meal, candles, &c., and receive stock-fish and train-oil in exchange. Sometimes, also, an English ship arrives with a supply of coals.

The fishing grounds off the coast of Finmark, whose produce forms the staple article of the merchants of Hammerfest, are scarcely inferior in importance to those of Lofoten, the number of cod taken here in 1866 amounting to 15,000,000. A great part of the fish is purchased by the Russians as it comes out of the water. Of the prepared cod, Spain takes the largest quantity, as in 1865 upwards of 44,000,000 lbs. of clip-fish (nearly the whole yield for the year) was consigned to that country. Of the dried variety, 10,000,000 lbs. were exported to the Mediterranean, and upwards of 4,000,000 lbs. more to Italy. Sweden and Holland come next in order, the supply in each case being over 5,000,000 lbs. Great Britain takes scarcely any stock-fish, but 1,500,000 lbs. of clip-fish, and the large export to the West Indies is almost entirely composed of the latter article.

The winter, though long and dark, has no terrors for the jolly Hammerfesters, for all the traders and shopkeepers form a united aristocracy, and rarely a night passes without a feast, a dance, and a drinking bout. The day when the sun reappears is one of general rejoicing, the first who sees the great luminary proclaims it with a loud voice, and everybody rushes into the street to exchange congratulations with his neighbours. The island of Hvalö has a most dreary sterile aspect, and considerable masses of snow fill the ravines, even in summer. The birch, however, is still found growing 620 feet above the sea, but the fir has disappeared.

It may well be supposed that no stranger has ever sojourned in this interesting place, the furthest outpost of civilisation towards the Pole, without visiting, or at least attempting to visit, the far-famed North Cape, situated about sixty miles from Hammerfest, on the island of Magerö, where a few Norwegians live in earthen huts, and still manage to rear a few heads of cattle. The voyage to this magnificent headland, which fronts the sea with a steep rock wall nearly a thousand feet high, is frequently difficult and precarious,

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nor can it be scaled without considerable fatigue; but the view from the summit amply rewards the trouble, and it is no small satisfaction to stand on the brink of the most northern promontory of Europe.

'It is impossible,' says Mr. W. Hurton,* adequately to describe the emotion experienced by me as I stepped up to the dizzy verge. I only know that I devoutly returned than's to the Almighty for thus permitting me to realise one darling dream of my boyhood. Despite the wind, which here blew violently and bitterly cold, I sat down, and wrapping my cloak around me, long contemplated the spectacle of Nature in one of her sublimest aspects. I was truly alone.

'Not a living object was in sight; beneath my feet was the boundless expanse of ocean, with a sail or two on its bosom, at an immense distance; above me was the canopy of heaven flecked with fleecy cloudlets; the sun was luridly gleaming over a broad belt of blood-red mist; the only sounds were the whistling of the wandering winds and the occasional plaintive scream of the hovering sea-fowl. The only living creature which came near me was a bee, which hummed merrily by. What did the busy insect seek there? Not a blade of grass grew, and the only vegetable matter on this point was a cluster of withered moss at the very edge of the awful precipice, and this I gathered, at considerable risk, as a memorial of my visit.'

The west coast of Spitzbergen-Ascension of a Mountain by Dr. Scoresby-His Excursion along the Coast-A stranded Whale-Magdalena Bay-Multitudes of Sea-birds-Animal Life-Midnight Silence-Glaciers-A dangerous Neighbourhood-Interior Plateau-Flora of Spitzbergen-Its Similarity with that of the Alps above the Snow-line-Reindeer-The hyperborean Ptarmigan-FishesCoal-Driftwood-Discovery of Spitzbergen by Barentz, Heemskerk, and Ryp -Brilliant Period of the Whale-fishery-Coffins-Eight English Sailors winter in Spitzbergen, 1630--Melancholy Death of some Dutch Volunteers-Russian Hunters-Their Mode of Wintering in Spitzbergen-Scharostin-Walrus Ships from Hammerfest and Tromsö-Bear or Cherie Island-Bennet-Enormous Slaughter of Walruses-Mildness of its Climate-Mount Misery--Adventurous Boat Voyage of some Norwegian Sailors-Jan Meyen-Beerenberg.

THE

HE archipelago of Spitzbergen consists of five large islands: West Spitzbergen, North-East Land, Stans Foreland, Barentz Land, Prince Charles Foreland; and of a vast number of smaller ones, scattered around their coasts. Its surface is about equal to that of two-thirds of Scotland; its most southern point (76° 30′ N. lat.) lies nearer to the