11.0RA OF WESTERN ESKlilAUX-L^VND. 15 
clay, and corrolborating the observation of the accurate J. D. Hooker, who, after a series of 
experiments in India, arrived at the same conclusion. The roots of the plants, even those 
of the shrubs and trees, do not penetrate into the frozen subsoil. On reacliing it they 
recoil as if they touched upon a rock through -which no passage could be forced. It may he 
surprising to behold a vegetation flom:ishing under such circumstances, existing independent, 
it would seem, of terrestrial heat. But siu:prise is changed into amazement on visiting 
Kotzebue Sound, where, on the tops of icebergs, herbs and shrubs are thriving with a 
luxuriance only equalled in more favoured climes. There, from Elephant to Eschscholtz 
Point, is a series of cliffs from seventy to ninety feet high, which present some striking illus- 
trations of the manner in ^vhich Arctic plants grow. (See Plate I.) Three distinct layers 
compose these cliffs. The lower, as far as it can be seen above the ground, is ice, and fi'om 
twenty to fifty feet high. The central is clay, varying in thickness fi-om two to twenty feet, 
and being intermingled with remains of fossil elephants, horses, deer, and musk oxen. The 
clay is covered by peat, the third layer, bearing the vegetation to which it owes its existence. 
Every year, during July, August, and September, masses of the ice melt, by which the 
uppermost layers are deprived of support and tumble down. A complete chaos is thus 
created ; ice, plants, bones, peat, clay, are mixed in the most disorderly manner. It is hardly 
possible to imagine a more grotesque aspect. Here are seen pieces still covered with Lichens 
and Mosses, there a shoal of earth Anth bushes of Willows ; at one place a lump of clay with 
Senecios and Polygonums, at another the remnants of the mammoth, tufts of hair, and some 
browTi dust, which emits the smell peculiar to burial-places, and is evidently decomposed 
animal matter. The foot frequently stumbles over enormous osteologieal remains, some 
elephants' tusks measiuing as much as twelve feet in length, and weighing more than 240 
pounds. Nor is the formation confined to Eschschohz Bay. It is observed in various parts 
of Kotzebue Sound, on the river Buckland, and in other locahties, making it probable that a 
great portion of extreme North-western America is, miderneath, a soHd mass of ice. With 
such facts before us we must acknowledge that terrestrial heat exercises but a limited and 
indu-eet influence upon vegetable Hfe, and that to the solar rays we are mainly mdebted to 
the existence of those forms which clothe with verdm-e the surface of our planet. 
The climate is considerably milder than that of the eastern shores of America. The 
proofs we need not deduce from artificial tables, Natm-e herself has written them on the face 
of the country The abundance of animal life, the occiurence of many southern plants, and 
above aU the limit of the woods, if compared with the opposite shores, furnish indisputable 
evidence On the eastern side of America no forests are found above the mouth of the nver 
^.. above the 60th degree of latitude ; on the western, they extend as far as latitude 66 44' 
north or nearly seven degrees farther towards the Pole. There are but two seasons, both 
following each other in quick succession. Towards the middle of October the winter ap- 
proaches All life seems extinct. The sky is cloudless, the ah calm, and most of the animals, 
the visitors of the mossy steppes during the few weeks of mimteirupted dayhght, have left 
