for the dispatch of severall businesses, which is farther assisted by the whiteness of the Snow. The Air of _Lapland_ is cold, but fresh and clear, and consequently very wholesome, being much purified by the winds which are here very frequent and violent. It has bin attested to me by eye-witnesses, that there rises a certain wind out of the Sea, which beginning to blow raises presently such thick and dark clouds even in the midst of Summer, that they utterly hinder the sight, and in the Winter drives the snow with such force and quantity, that if any person be surprised abroad, he hath no other remedy but to throw himself on the ground with some garment over him, suffering himself to be quite buried in snow till the storm is past, which don, he rises up, and betakes himself to the next Cottage he can meet, all paths and roads being hid in the snow. But the strongest and most irresistible winds are upon the Mountains, where they throw down all things they meet with, and carry them away by their violence into far distant places, where they are never seen or heard of afterwards. Their only help against these is to convey themselves into dens and caves. Here is rain as in other places, sometimes more, and sometimes less, but in the midst of Summer, this as likewise the neighbouring Countries have very seldom any at all. Snow they have more often, and so much that in the Winter it covers all the Country, of which they make this advantage, that they can travel the more securely in the night; for the light of the Moon reflected from the snow, enlightens all the fields, that they can discern and avoid any pits, precipices and wild Beasts, that would otherwise annoy them: so convenient are the wayes for any journy, that two rein deer will draw a greater load over the trodden snow, then a Cart and ten Horses can in the fields at other times. These snows in some places, as on the tops of their highest hills, remain perpetually, and are never melted by the strongest heat of the Sun. In the upper part of _Lapland_ there are Mountains rising to such a vast hight, that the snow continues upon them Summer and Winter, and is never dissolved, but in other places the Land is every year over-flown with floods of melted snow. They have also very great frosts and mists, and good store of them, which sometimes so thicken the air, that the sight is quite obstructed, and Passengers cann’t distinguish one man from another to salute or avoid him, tho he be come close up to them. It is so extreme cold here in the Winter, that ’tis not to be endured but by those who have bin bred up in it. The swiftest Rivers are sometimes frozen so hard, that the ice is more than three or four cubits thick; and their greatest Lakes and deepest Seas bear any burdens whatever. Nor is the Summer, which to some may seem incredible, more moderately hot. For tho the Sun be very low, and his raies oblique, yet lying upon them so