animal, rising breast-high, fixes one look before he plunges. It has cost him all that curiosity can cost, the harpoon is buried under his left flipper.

Though the awuk is down in a moment, Myouk is running at desperate speed from the scene of his victory, paying off his coil freely, but clutching the end by its loop. As he runs he seizes a small piece of bone, rudely pointed with iron, and, by a sudden movement, he drives it into the ice: to this he secures his line, pressing it down close to the ice-surface with his feet.

Now comes the struggle. The hole is dashed in mad commotion with the struggles of the wounded animal; the line is drawn tight at one moment, relaxed the next. The hunter has not left his station. There is a crash of the ice; and rearing up through it are two walruses, not many yards from where he stands. One of them, the male, is excited and seemingly terrified; the other, the female, collected and vengeful. Down they go again, after one grim survey of the field; and at that instant Myouk changes his position, carrying his coil with him and fixing it

anew.

He has hardly fixed it before the pair have again risen, breaking up an area of ten feet in diameter about the very spot he left. As they sink once more he again changes his place. And so the conflict goes on between address and force, till the victim, half exhausted, receives a second wound, and is played like a trout by the angler's reel. . . .

.....

Some idea may be formed of the ferocity of the walrus, from the fact that the battle which Morton witnessed-not without sharing in its dangers-lasted for four hours; during which the animal rushed continually at the Esquimaux as they approached, tearing off great tables of ice with his tusks, and showing no indication of fear whatever. He received upwards of seventy lance wounds,-Morton counted over sixty; and even then he remained hooked by his tusks to the margin of the ice, either unable or unwilling to retire. His female fought in the same manner, but fled on receiving a lance-wound.

SNOW.

WHEN a cold current of air meets with the vapour contained in a warm current of air, it causes that vapour to fall in the form of rain, snow, or hail. The state of the atmosphere determines which of these forms it shall take. Snow is formed by the freezing of watery particles in the lower regions of the atmosphere, which are at first mere icy lines or stars, but collect together, and form flakes, in the course of their descent to the earth. The formation of snow is often carried on before the eyes of the dwellers in Arctic regions. Though they close every crevice in their huts, in order to keep out the cold air, yet the walls are covered with icy particles; and when a stream of air accidentally finds entrance, snowy flakes are precipitated. The same curious sight has been witnessed at St. Petersburg. In a crowded assembly-room in that capital, a gentleman happened to break a pane of glass, and the stream of intensely cold air which entered by that means was sufficient to congeal the vapour in the air of the room, which immediately fell in the form of snow-flakes. The Dutch who wintered in Nova Zembla found that snow-flakes were formed from the vapour of their breath, every time they came in contact with the cxternal air.

The snow that falls in northern latitudes is more like a thick sleet than the large flakes which we see in England. The particles freezing as they descend, assume the form of minute crystals, which, in a strong wind, are carried along in a similar manner to the sand over the African deserts.

Flakes of snow, as seen in temperate climates, are generally irregular in their shape, though often elegant and reflecting with great splendour the rays of the sun. This is also the case in the Arctic regions, when the temperature of the air is near the freezing point, and much snow falls. Sometimes it consists of small grains; sometimes of large, rough, white flakes; at others, the flakes are composed of starry crystals, formed of separate grains. But in severe frosts, although the sky may appear perfectly clear,

flakes of snow, of the most regular and beautiful forms, are always seen floating in the air, and sparkling in the sunbeams; and the snow which falls in general is of the most elegant texture and appearance. Many are the wonders discovered to us by the microscope, both in the animal and vegetable worlds, but it is doubtful whether there is anything among these wonders to surpass in beauty the snow-flakes of the polar regions.

The celebrated Arctic traveller, Scoresby, has described a great number of different crystalline forms, some of which snow exhibits when examined by the microscope. Thus, among others, there are beautiful varieties which resemble stars, wheels, pyramids, complex mathematical figures, rosettes, leaves, spines, feathers, and others equally curious. How strange to think that a few degrees less heat evolve these beauties of form and aspect from a drop of water! The lightness of snow is occasioned by the extent of its surface very much exceeding the matter it contains. It has been calculated that a flake of snow, taken as nine times more expanded than water, descends three times more slowly. A depth of twentyseven inches of snow, in melting, does not give more than three inches of water. The whiteness of snow is owing to the minute particles into which it is divided; hence when ice is pounded it is equally white.

In countries lying within six or seven hundred miles of the poles, the ground is always covered with snow, even when its level is only a few inches above the sea. And, in every part of the world, there is a certain height at which the atmosphere is in a state to form snow, and where, if land occurs, it will be covered with snow all the year round. This is called the snowline, or limit of perpetual snow. Thus, we find that, in temperate and warm countries, the summits of lofty mountains, reaching to this height, are always covered with snow. The snow-line varies exceedingly near the Equator, it is three miles above the sealevel; in places that are equally distant from the Equator and the Poles, one mile and three quarters; and near the Poles, the snowline comes down to the surface of the earth.

The uses of snow to the earth are many and most important.

Even on the summits of lofty mountains, where no sign of vegetation appears, but where snow always covers the heights, a most beneficial effect is produced on the surrounding countries, especially on such as are subject to periodical droughts of many months' duration. The partial melting of the mountain-snows, during summer, gives rise to numerous rivers, and keeps up the supply of their waters, to the incalculable benefit of the inhabitants of the regions through which they flow.

At lower elevations, snow has valuable uses to the vegetable world, in protecting it, during the winter season, from the effects of intense frost; for, being a bad conductor of heat, it retains the temperature of the ground at what it was when the snow fell. While the air above the snow may be 38 degrees below zero, the ground below will only be at zero. Hence the fine, healthy green colour of young wheat and young grass, after the snow has melted in spring. In districts where snow remains on the ground all the winter, and only disappears with the approach of spring, this effect is much more obvious than with us: numerous beautiful and somewhat delicate plants flourish as wild flowers among mountains, while with us the winter season is often destructive to them. This is easily accounted for, when we consider that, in their native heights, severe as they are, these plants have a covering, like that of a thick woollen garment, protecting them from frost during the whole winter; while in this climate they are exposed to sudden changes of temperature, being at one time drenched with long-continued rains, and at another, perhaps, exposed to severe frost, before any snow has fallen to shelter them.

"Few," says Dr. Kane, " can realize the protecting value of a warm coverlet of snow. No eider down in the cradle of an infant is tucked in more kindly than the sleeping dress of winter about the feeble flower life of the Arctic regions. The first snows of August and September enshrine the Arctic plants in a nonconducting air-chamber; and as each successive fall increases the thickness of the cover, we have, before the intense cold of winter sets in, a light cellular bed, covered by drift six, eight, or ten feet deep, in which the plant retains its vitality."

SNOW HUTS.

THE snow huts of the Greenlanders have been described by Captain Parry, who, during his second voyage to the Arctic regions, wintered upon a small island called by the Esquimaux, Winter Island. Here he was visited by a friendly party of the Esquimaux, and Captains Parry and Lyon accompanied them to their huts on shore, and were much gratified by the uncommon spectacle of a snow village. "When it is recollected," says Captain Parry, "that these habitations were fully within sight of the ships, and how many eyes were continually on the look-out, among us, for anything that could afford interest or variety in our present situation, our surprise may in some degree be imagined, at finding an establishment of huts, with canoes, sledges, dogs, and above sixty men, women, and children, as regularly, and to all appearance as permanently, fixed, as if they had occupied the spot for the whole winter."

In the construction of these extraordinary houses, not a single material was used but snow and ice. They were formed of oblong blocks of the former substance, six or seven inches thick, and about two feet long, disposed in successive layers in a circular form, each layer resting on its edge, and inclining inward until the sides of the building approached so near as to leave only a small aperture at the top, into which the key-stone (block) was fitted with much nicety. The interior was no less remarkable. After creeping through two continuous passages, each about ten feet long, and from four to five feet in height, and each possessing an arched doorway, our voyagers came to a small circular apartment, which opened by three doorways into as many inhabited apartments, one on each side of, and the other opposite to, the entrance. "The interior of these huts," says Captain Parry, “presented a scene no less novel than interesting. The women were seated on the beds at the sides of the huts, each having her little fire-place or lamp, with all her domestic utensils about her; the children crept behind their mothers; and the dogs, except the female ones, which were indulged with a part of the beds, slunk out past us in dismay."