In Spitzbergen, neither thunder nor lightning has, I believe, ever been observed. For my own part, I have never seen lightning northward of latitude 65°, and only in two instances when at any considerable distance from land. The aurora borealis occurs independent of land and of cold, becoming more frequent in its appearance as we approach the Pole, and enlivening by its brilliancy and peculiar grandeur the tedious gloom of the long winter nights. Its appearance, though not very frequently seen in Britain, is very common as far south as Shetland and Feroe. In Iceland, and other countries bordering on the arctic circle, the northern lights occur almost every clear night during the winter. In the summer, they can seldom be seen on account of the presence of the sun, and in the spring of the year, the obscurity of the atmosphere prevents their frequent exhibition. In several instances, I have known stormy weather follow the appearance of the brilliant aurora, and one of the most tremendous storms I was ever exposed to, succeeded a splendid exhibition of the northern lights. Under certain circumstances, especially when they are seen at a considerable altitude above the horizon, having a red or copper colour, they are supposed to be indicative of a violent storm. Our chapter on atmospherical phenomena must now be concluded by observations on aqueous meteors; including clouds, rain, hail, snow, frost-rime, hoar-frost, and fog. Very little clear weather occurs in the Greenland seas, for often when the atmosphere is free from any visible vapour on the land, at sea it is obscured by frost-rime in the spring of the year, and by clouds or fog in the summer; so that scarcely one-twentieth of the season devoted to the whale-fishery can be said to consist of clear weather. The _clouds_ most generally consist of a dense stratum of obscurity, composed of irregular compact patches covering the whole expanse of the heavens. The _cirrus_, _cirrocumulus_, and _cirrostratus_, of Howard’s nomenclature, are occasionally distinct; the _nimbus_ is partly formed, but never complete: and the grandeur of the _cumulus_ or thunder-cloud is never seen, unless it be on the land. In the atmosphere over the coasts in Greenland and Spitzbergen, where the air is greatly warmed by the concentration and reflection of the sun’s rays in the sheltered valleys, a small imperfect cumulus is sometimes exhibited.