A most extraordinary appearance of the Foreland, or Charles’s Island, Spitzbergen, occurred on the 16th of July, 1814. While sailing to the southward, along the coast, with an easterly wind, I observed what appeared to be a mountain, in the form of a slender, but elevated, monument. I was surprised that I had never seen it before, and was more astonished when I saw, not far distant, a prodigious and perfect arch thrown across a valley, of above a league in breadth. The neighbouring mountains disclosed the cause, by exhibiting an unnatural elevation with the columnar structure of looming objects. Presently, the scene was changed, the mountains along the whole coast assumed the most fantastical forms; the appearance of castles, with lofty spires, towers, and battlements, would, in a few minutes, be converted into a vast arch or romantic bridge. These varied, and sometimes beautiful, metamorphoses naturally suggested the reality of fairy descriptions; for the air was perfectly transparent; the contrast of snow and rocks was quite distinct; even in the substance of the most uncommon phantasms, though examined with a powerful telescope, and every object deemed to possess every possible stability. I never before observed a phenomenon so varied or so amusing. The land was not alone affected by this peculiar refraction, since every object between the north-east and south-east points of the compass was, more or less, deformed by it. A mass of ice on the horizon appeared of the height of a cliff, and the prismatic structure of its front suggested the idea of basaltic columns. It may be remarked, that these phenomena took place on a clear evening, after an uncommonly warm afternoon. I observed many other peculiar effects of refraction. Such phenomena are frequent on the commencement or approach of easterly winds, and are probably occasioned by the commixture, near the surface of the land or sea, of two streams of air of different temperatures, so as to occasion an irregular deposition of imperfectly condensed vapour, which, when passing the verge of the horizon, produced these appearances. _Parhelia_, mock suns, and _corona_, haloes, are perhaps not so frequent in Greenland as in some parts of America. I do not recollect to have observed them more than thrice. In the first instance, I did not minutely notice the particulars. I recollect, however, there were two or three parhelia, and four or five coloured circles, some of which almost equalled in their colours the brilliancy of the rainbow. On the second occasion, several parhelia were succeeded by a lunar halo, together with the aurora borealis, and proved the harbingers of a tremendous tempest. The last phenomenon of the kind which I saw, consisted of a large circle of luminous whiteness, passing through the centre of the sun, in a direction nearly parallel with the horizon, intersected in various places with coloured circles of smaller dimensions.