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regions. Captain Parry's account of his third voyage to the Arctic Circle affords some additional information on the subject, with which we shall now present our readers. It is difficult to conceive, says the gallant captain, any one thing more like another than two winters passed in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions, except when variety happens to be afforded by intercourse with some other branch of the whole family of man.' Winter after winter, nature here assumes an aspect so much alike, that cursory observation can scarcely detect a single feature of variety. The winter of more temperate climates, and even in some of no slight severity, is occasionally diversified by a thaw, which at once gives variety and comparative cheerfulness to the prospect; but here, when once the earth is covered, all is dreary and monotonous whiteness,-not merely for days or weeks, but for more than half a year together. Whichever way the eye is turned, it meets a picture calculated to impress upon the mind an idea of inanimate stillness; of that motionless torpor with which our feelings have nothing congenial-of any thing, in short, but life. In the very silence there is a deadness with which a human spectator appears out of keeping.' The presence of man seems an intrusion on the dreary solitude of this wintry desart, which even its native animals have for a while forsaken.

Captain Parry's remarks on the effects of cold, and the means of preserving health in high northern latitudes, deserve attention; and display a benevolent vigilance and anxious regard for the safety of his crews, which entitle him to national gratitude. He observes, it may well be supposed that, in. this climate, the principal desideratum which art is called upon to furnish for the promotion of health, is warmth, as well in the external air as in the inhabited apartments. Exposure to a cold atmosphere, when the body is well clothed, produces no bad

effect beyond a frost-bitten cheek, nose, or finger. As for any injury to healthy lungs from the breathing of cold air, or from sudden changes from this into a warm atmosphere, or vice versa, it may with confidence be asserted that, with due attention to external clothing, there is nothing in this respect to be apprehended. This inference, at least, would appear legitimate, from the fact that our crews, consisting of 120 persons, have, for four winters, been constantly undergoing, for months together, a change of from 80 to 100 degrees of temperature, in the space of time required for opening two doors (perhaps less than half a minute), without incurring any pulmonary complaints at all.

After having described the nature of the clothing worn by the men, Captain Parry says, it is certain, however, that no precautions in clothing are sufficient to maintain health during a Polar winter, without a due degree of warmth in the apartments we inhabit. Most persons are apt to associate with the idea of warmth something like the comfort derived from a good fire on a winter's evening at home; but in these regions the case is inconceivably different. Here it is not simple comfort, but health, and therefore ultimately life, that depends upon it. The want of a constant supply of warmth is here immediately followed by a condensation of all the moisture, whether from the breath, victuals, or other sources, into abundant drops of water, very rapidly forming on all the coldest parts of the deck. A still lower temperature modifies, and perhaps improves, the annoyance by converting it into ice, which again an occasional increase of warmth dissolves into water. Nor is this the amount of the evil, though it is the only visible part of it; for not only is a moist atmosphere thus incessantly kept up, but it is rendered stagnant also by the want of that ventilation which warmth alone can furnish. With an apartment in this state, the men's clothes and bedding are continually in a

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moist and unwholesome condition, generating a deleterious air, which there is no circulation to carry off: and whenever these circumstances combine for any length of time together, so surely may the scurvy, to say nothing of other diseases, be confidently expected to exhibit itself.

To counteract these effects, the discovery vessels were fitted up with Sylvester's warming apparatus, a contrivance of which (says Captain Parry) I scarcely know how to express my admiration in adequate terms. The alteration adopted on this voyage, of placing the stove in the very bottom of the hold, produced not only the effect naturally to be expected from it, of increasing the rapidity of the current of warm air, and thus carrying it to all the officers' cabins, with less loss of heat in its passage, but was also accompanied by an advantage which had not been anticipated. This was the perfect and uniform warmth maintained during the winter in both the cable-tiers, which, when cleared of all the stores, gave us another habitable deck, on which more than one-third of the men's hammocks were berthed; thus affording to the ships' companies, during seven or eight months of the year, the indescribable comfort of nearly twice the space for their beds, and twice the volume of air to breathe in. It need scarcely be added how conducive to wholesome ventilation, and to the prevention of moisture below, such an arrangement proved; suffice it to say, that we have never before been so free from moisture, and that I cannot but chiefly attribute to this apparatus the unprecedented good state of health we enjoyed during the winter.

The extreme facility with which sounds are heard at a considerable distance, in severely cold weather, has often been a subject of remark; but a circumstance occurred at Port Bowen, which deserves to be noticed, as affording a sort of measure of this facility, or at least of conveying to others some

definite idea of the fact. Lieutenant Foster having occasion to send a man from the observatory to the opposite shore of the harbour, a measured distance of 6,696 feet, or about one statute mile and twotenths, in order to fix a meridian mark, had placed a person half way between, to repeat his directions; but he found on trial that this precaution was unnecessary, as he could, without difficulty, keep up a conversation with the man at the distant station.

The SNOW FIEND.

[By Mrs. Radcliffe1.]

Hark! to the Snow-Fiend's voice afar
That shrieks upon the troubled air!
Him by that shrilly call I know-
Though yet unseen, unfelt below-
And by the mist of livid grey,
That steals upon his onward way.
He from the ice-peaks of the North
In sounding majesty comes forth;
Dark amidst the wondrous light,
That streams o'er all the northern night.
A wan rime through the airy waste
Marks where unseen his car has past;
And veils the spectre-shapes, his train,
That wait upon his vengeful reign.
Disease and Want and shuddering Fear,
Danger and Woe and Death are there.
Around his head for ever raves
A whirlwind cold of misty waves.
But oft, the parting surge between,
His visage, keen and white, is seen;
His savage eye and paly glare
Beneath a helm of ice appear;
A snowy plume waves o'er the crest,
And wings of snow his form invest.
Aloft he bears a frozen wand;
The ice-bolt trembles in his hand;
And ever, when on sea he rides,
An iceberg for his throne provides.
As, fierce, he drives his distant way,

Agents remote his call obey,

From half-known Greenland's snow-piled shore
To Newfoundland and Labrador;

See her very interesting' Posthumous Works,' vol. iv, p. 192.

O'er solid seas, where nought is scanned
To mark a difference from land,
And sound itself does but explain
The desolation of his reign;
The moaning querulous and deep,
And the wild howl's infuriate sweep
Where'er he moves, some note of woe
Proclaims the presence of the foe;
While he, relentless, round him flings
The white shower from his flaky wings.
Hark! 'tis his voice :-I shun his call,
And shudd'ring seek the blazing hall.
O! speak of mirth; O! raise the song!
Hear not the fiends that round him throng,
Of curtained rooms and firesides tell;
Bid Fancy work her genial spell,
That wraps in marvel and delight
December's long tempestuous night;
Makes courtly groups in summer bowers
Dance through pale Winter's midnight hours;
And July's eve its rich glow shed

On the hoar wreath that binds his head;
Or knights on strange adventure bent,
Or ladies into thraldom sent;

Whatever gaiety ideal

Can substitute for troubles real.
Then let the storms of Winter sing,
And his sad veil the Snow-Fiend fling,
Though wailing lays are in the wind,
They reach not then the 'tranced mind;
Nor murky form nor dismal sound
May pass the high, enchanted bound!

An ALPINE WINTER.

The following beautiful sketch is from the Novel of Valperga, and with this we will conclude our brumal notices for January :

'He approached the beautiful Alps, the boundaries of his native country: their white domes and peaks pierced the serene atmosphere; and silence, the deep silence of an Alpine winter, reigned among their ravines. As he advanced into their solitudes, he lost all traces of the footsteps of man, and almost of animals: an eagle would sometimes cross a ravine, or a chamois was seen hanging on the nearly perpendicular rock. The giant pines were weighed down