The climate of Spitzbergen is no doubt more disagreeable to human feeling than that of any other country yet discovered. Extending to within ten degrees of the Pole, it is generally intensely cold, and even in the three warmest months, the temperature not averaging more than 34½°, it is then subject to a cold of three, four, or more degrees below the freezing point. It has the advantage, however, of being visited by the sun for an uninterrupted period of four months in each year, thus having a summer’s day—if so long an interval between the rising and setting of the sun may be so denominated—consisting of one-third part of the year. But its winter is proportionably desolate; the sun, in the northern parts of the country, remaining perpetually below the horizon from about the 22nd of October to about the 22nd of February. This great winter night, though sufficiently dreary, is by no means so dark as might be expected, God having, by wise and merciful arrangements, distributed, with some approach to equality, the blessings of his providence. The sun, even during its greatest south declination, approaches within 13½° of the horizon, and affords a faint twilight for about one-fourth part of every twenty-four hours. Added to this twilight, the aurora borealis, which sometimes exhibits a brilliancy approaching a blaze of fire—the stars, which shine with an uncommon degree of brightness—and the moon, which, in north declination, appears for twelve or fourteen days together without setting—altogether have an effect, which, when heightened by the reflection of a constant surface of snow, generally give sufficient light for going abroad; but, with the light afforded by the heavens, when the moon is below the horizon, it is seldom possible to read.