The Sun At Midnight

A steamboat leaves Stockholm cvery week, tnd touche? at Gefle, Hudiksvoll, Hernosand, Umea. and other pointö on the western coast of ihe Guit' of Botlmi'i, as wpII as at Wassn ou theeasrcm, on its way up to Tornen, at the liead of the gulf. This voyjtge is a very pleasant one, and give6 an opportuuity to tiose who wish to go up to ttiat very norihern city at the eummer solitice, (the 23d oí June, or St, John's dny,) wheu, trom a neigliboring niountain, theycan have their fuith confirmed ín the trutli of the Cnpernican éystém. Foratthat epoch, the eun, to thse v!u are on that elevation di es nt descend below the horizon, but ït seems to decline in the north west, and vorge more und more to the exact norlh, tintil it reaehes at imdnigbt its lowest poinf. when t is visible above the horizen. Ju a few minuies ie is seen to commence its upward course towards the north east, and thuscontmues ha glörious progresa until its reaches ag.iin its zenit h in the'suuth. Even to cine who ií at Stockholm ut that einch, thenirhtsfor two or three weeks aro sufficiently light froin the rt-fraction of the un's rayo-, owing to its beinj so little benealh the' horizon, for the performance of ü- most any buainess. We happened about ihat time, four y ars figo, tobe going up to the Promotion at Up&ala, aml were obliged to travel all night; and we have adist'mct recoliection of rading a letter at midrught, with ease, even wltilst passing through a forest. And the year afrer, at the same season, weoften whUe.i avay our leisure raoments by sitling at the window of the huuse where we srayed, on the EnglishQuaiy in St. Petersburg, a city which issituated in the same degree north of Stockholm, andreadiiig unüi midnight. During that period, scarcely a cloud was to be seen in the sky, which had both day and night that üght blue which is peculiar to these Borthern región 3 at that portion of the year, and which is nccasioned by the rays of the sim Btriking the atmosphere of ihat portion of the earth at so Email an angle. Scarcely a star was visible in the heavens at night, and the moon, even when ful!, hardly formed a shndow. At that season, there is somethinsr nnnalural and death-like in the appearance of things as night sets in. Business cornos to an end before the sim goes down, and all fulla into stillness and repose while it is yet light And if you have been unacenstomed to such a state of things, you seem, a8 you pass through the 6treets whether it be of Stockholm, or St. Petersburg, Hernosand or Tornea, to be in the midst of a city whicli is uninhabited. No living thing, perhaps, is to be seen any where, as you pass street after street, save eome solitary