60 THE WORLD OF ICE.

A consultation was now held, and it was resolved to
proceed north, as far as the ice would permit, towards
Smith’s Sound, and examine the coast carefully in that
direction.

For several weeks past there had been gradually
coming over the aspect of nature a change, to which
we have not yet referred, and which filled Fred Ellice
and his friend, the young surgeon, with surprise and
admiration. This was the long-continued daylight,
which now lasted the whole night round, and in-
ereased in intensity every day as they advanced
north. They had, indeed, often heard and read of it
before, but their minds had utterly failed to form a
correct conception of the exquisite calmness and
beauty of the midnight-day of the north.

Every one knows that, in consequence of the axis
of the earth not being perpendicular to the plane of
its orbit round the sun, the poles are alternately
directed more or less towards that great luminary
during one part of the year, and away from it during
another part. So that far north the days during the
one season grow longer and longer until at last there
is one long day of many weeks’ duration, in which
the sun does not set at all; and during the other
season there is one long night, in which the sun is
never seen. It was approaching the height of the
summer season when the Dolphin entered the Arctic
Regions, and, although the sun descended below the
horizon for a short time each night, there was scarcely
any diminution of the light at all, and, as far as one’s