In the interesting narrative, by Pelham, of the preservation of eight seamen, who were accidentally left in Spitzbergen, in the year 1630, and wintered there, are some remarks on the effects of cold. The sea of the bay, where they took up their abode, froze over on the 10th of October. After the commencement of the new year, the frost became most intense; it raised blisters in their flesh as if they had been burned with fire, and if they touched iron at such times it would stick to their fingers like bird-lime. Sometimes, when they went out of doors to procure water, they were seized in such a way by the cold, that their flesh felt as sore as if they had been cruelly beaten. The effects of cold at Disco, as observed by M. Paul Egedé, on the 7th January, 1738, and recorded by David Crantz, in his History of Greenland, are too striking to be omitted. “The ice and hoar-frost,” says Egedé, “reach through the chimney to the stove’s mouth, without being thawed by the fire in the day-time. Over the chimney is an arch of frost, with little holes, through which the smoke discharges itself. The doors and walls are as if they were plastered over with frost, and, which is scarcely credible, beds are often frozen to the bedsteads. The linen is frozen in the drawers, the upper eider-down bed and the pillows are quite stiff with frost an inch thick, from the breath.” The terrific power of these mighty agencies of nature illustrate His perfections, who has all resources at his command, to minister to the comfort of his servants, or the inevitable destruction of his enemies. To be hostile to the God of heaven and of earth, is surely the height of folly as well as of ingratitude. “He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly. He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?”