Letters from high latitudes : being some account of a voyage, in 1856, in the schooner yacht "Foam" to Iceland, Jan Mayen, and Spitzbergen . -fourhours; giving me an opportunity of watching the sun per-forming his complete circle overhead, and taking a meridianaltitude at midnight. We were then in 700 25 North lati-tude ; , almost as far north as the North Cape; yet thethermometer had been up to 8o° during the afternoon. Shortly afterwards the fog came on again, and next morn-ing it was blowing very hard from the eastward. This wasthe more disagreeable, as it is always very difficult, unde
Letters from high latitudes : being some account of a voyage, in 1856, in the schooner yacht "Foam" to Iceland, Jan Mayen, and Spitzbergen . -fourhours; giving me an opportunity of watching the sun per-forming his complete circle overhead, and taking a meridianaltitude at midnight. We were then in 700 25 North lati-tude ; , almost as far north as the North Cape; yet thethermometer had been up to 8o° during the afternoon. Shortly afterwards the fog came on again, and next morn-ing it was blowing very hard from the eastward. This wasthe more disagreeable, as it is always very difficult, under themost favourable circumstances, to find ones way into anyharbour along this coast, fenced off, as it is, from the oceanby a complicated outwork of lofty islands, which, in theirturn, are hemmed in by nests of sunken rock, sown as thickas peas, for miles to seaward. There are no pilots until youare within the islands, and no longer want them,—no light-houses or beacons of any sort; and all that you have to goby is the shape of the hill-tops ; but as, on the clearest day,the outlines of the mountains have about as much variety as. the teeth of a saw, and as on a cloudy day, which happensabout seven times a week, you see nothing but the line oftheir dark roots,—the unfortunate mariner, who goes pokingabout for the narrow passage which is to lead him betweenthe islands,—at the back of one of which a pilot is waitingfor him,—will, in all probability, have already placed hisvessel in a position to render that functionarys furtherattendance a work of supererogation. At least, I know it
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Keywords: ., bookau, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectarcticregions
