The temperament of the air is not unhealthful; for, if you except the scurvy and distempers of the breast, they know nothing here of the many other diseases with which other countries are plagued; and these pectoral infirmities are not so much the effects of the excessive cold, as of that nasty foggish weather which this country is very much subject to; which I impute to the vast quantity of ice that covers the land and drives in the sea. From the beginning of April to the end of July is the foggish season, and from that time the fog daily decreases. But as in the summer time they are troubled with the fog, so in the winter season they are likewise plagued with the vapour called frost smoke, which, when the cold is excessive, rises out of the sea as the smoke out of a chimney, and is as thick as the thickest mist, especially in the bays, where there is any opening in the ice. It is very remarkable, that this frost, damp, or smoke, if you come near it, will singe the very skin of your face and hands; but when you are in it, you find no such piercing or stinging sharpness, but warm and soft; only it leaves a white frost upon your hair and clothes. I must not forget here to mention the wonderful harmony and correspondence which is observed in Greenland between fountains and the main sea, _viz._ that at spring tides, in new and full moon, when the strongest ebbing is at sea, the hidden fountains or springs of fresh water break out on shore, and discover themselves, often in places where you never would expect to meet with any such; especially in winter, when the ground is covered with ice and snow; yet at other times there are no water springs in those places. The cause of this wonderful harmony I leave to the learned inquiry of natural philosophers; how springs and fountains follow the motion of the main sea, as the sea does that of the moon. Yet this I must observe to you, that some great men have been greatly mistaken, in that they have taken for granted and asserted, that in Norway and Greenland the tide was hardly remarkable. (See Mr. Wollf’s Reasonable Thoughts on the Effects of Nature, p. 541.) Whereas nowhere greater tide is observed; the sea, at new and full moon, especially in the spring and fall, rises and falls about three fathoms. CHAP. V. [Illustration] _Of the Land Animals, and Land Fowls or Birds of Greenland; and how they hunt and hill them._