The Greenland Sea, frozen and extensive as it is, teems with life. The variety of the animal creation is not, indeed, very great, but the quantity of some of the species that occur is truly immense. The minute medusæ and animalcules, throughout the Spitzbergen Sea, would exceed all the powers of the mind to conceive. These little creatures constitute the food of the largest animals in the creation. The common whale feeds on medusæ, sepiæ, cancri, actiniæ, etc., and these feed, probably, on the minor medusæ animalcules. The fin-whales and dolphins feed principally on herrings and other small fishes. These subsist on the smaller cancri, medusæ, and animalcules. The bear’s most general food is the seal; the seal subsists on the cancri and small fishes, and these on lesser animals of the tribe, or on the minor medusæ and animalcules. Thus the whole of the larger animals depend on these minute beings, which, until the year 1816, when I first entered on the examination of the sea-water, were not, I believe, known to exist in the Polar Seas. The manner in which these minute animals are preserved, in a sea which is surrounded by an atmosphere ten or twelve degrees in mean temperature below the freezing point of salt water, is curious and interesting, and illustrates the combined wisdom and goodness of the Lawgiver of these icy regions, as well as of the entire globe. If the water of the sea were stationary, the temperature of the atmosphere would soon freeze it to the very bottom, and destroy all these minute animals, who have not either instinct or power of motion to retire into a more southern region. A current, however, is provided, setting towards the south-west, which carries away the ice into a parallel where it can be dissolved, and creates a circulation of water into the frozen regions from a warmer climate; while therefore the superficial current is carrying away the ice, an under-current, in a contrary direction, is bringing in warmth beneath. But how, it may be asked, does it happen that the minor medusæ are not carried away into the southern region? It is no violation of commonly received principles to suppose, that whenever the medusæ are carried to some extent southward, they sink in the water until they reach the stream of the under-current, and are by it conveyed to their proper element. The fact that the olive-green water of the sea maintains a similar position for years together, while surface after surface of ice is carried away and dissipated, is in support of this conjecture. Thus, by a most beautiful contrivance, a large portion of the surface of the globe is rendered habitable, which would otherwise be a solid mass of ice, and the Polar Sea affords a dwelling-place for many tribes of animals most useful in supplying the wants, and contributing to the comfort, of man. It is not only, therefore, in those regions where “Spices breathe and milder seasons smile,”