148 SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



Mountains of Lapland, &c. 



Valenberg's AN Account of a Journey, undertaken in 1807, by M. Valen- 



Journev tor berg, has been published lately, at Stockholm, under the 

 examining the , .. . - , -.*.•»- *■ « ^ s- l 



mountains of auspices of the Academy of Sciences of Sweden, Jor the pur- 



Lapland. pose of determining the height of the mountains of Lapland, and 



observing their temperature. The mountains visited by M. 

 Valenberg, make part of the great chain which runs through 

 Sweden and Norway, and stretches in some of its branches 

 even to Finland and Russia. They are situated between 67 

 and 68 degrees north latitude, and belong to the polar regions. 

 On several points their bases are washed by the sea, and from 

 their summits the immense plain of the Northern Ocean is 

 discoverable. These mountains had been onl> hitherto viewed 

 in all their majestic grandeur by the Lapland nomade, following 

 his flocks of deer and his game. A few travellers had contem- 

 plated them at a distance j and M. de Bruck, a learned 

 German, during his travels in Norway, approached within a 

 short space of them $ but no person had ever yet penetrated 

 into this asylum of nature, and attempted to struggle with the 

 difficulties of ascending these summits, eternally covered with 

 snow and ice. 



The undertaking was difficult in many respects. The ascents 

 were mostly excessively steep, and in climbing them the tra- 

 veller was by turns suspended over deep fissures, lakes, tor- 

 rents, bottomless marshes, and gulfs. He had no intelligent 

 guide, there was no habitation on his route, and no assistance 

 to be expected. He frequently was obliged to make circuits of 

 many leagues to reach a summit 5 and he crossed not only- 

 snow and ice full of crevices, but also marshes, where he run 

 a continual risk of being buried in the mud and stagnant water. 

 He passed the nights on naked rocks, without a tent or the 

 smallest shelter} and he was frequently reduced to quench his 

 devouring thirst by swallowing snow, which occasioned him 

 inflammations and painful suppurations in the mouth. 



M. de Valenberg's measurements give the Lapland moun- 

 tains aa elevation of from 5 to 0,000 feet above the level of 



the 



