210 Biogra'phkal Memoir of the late Christian Smith. 



Copenhagen, could prevent liim from accompanying his friends 

 Hornemann and Wonnskiold on their botanical journey into 

 Norway. They explored some of the most impervious valleys ] 

 in the country, and made a number of new discoveries ; and 

 when, in 1807, the breaking out of the war between Denmark, 

 England and Sweden, obliged the friends to return to Copen- 

 hagen, Smith proceeded again into the mountains of Tellemark, 

 and brought from thence so many unknown mosses and lichens, 

 that, from that time_> he became known to all the botanists of 

 the north, and his reputation among them was thereby fully 

 established. 



Want of scientific resources brought him back to Copenha- 

 gen, during the misfortunes of his native country. No sooner,^ 

 however, was quiet restored, than he hastened again into the 

 mountains of the north, and undertook, in 1812, a most arduous 

 journey through Tellemark and Hallingdal, over the chain of 

 mountains down to the west coast. These mountains were little 

 known, even in the country itself. Their height had never been 

 measured ; their productions never been described ; and little 

 more was known of them than from the accounts of the fatigues 

 and dangers to which the peasants of Hardanger were exposed, 

 when they proceeded with the productions of their valleys over 

 the range to Kongsberg. Smith, incited in the highest degree, 

 by the striking and comprehensive views of Humboldt regarding 

 the geography of plants,which have had so decided an influence on 

 the researches of botanists, examined these mountains in the ca- 

 pacity both of an attentive naturalist who generalizes and com- 

 bines, and of an experienced botanist, from whose notice the 

 minutest plant does not escape ; and was thereby enabled to give 

 a narrative of this journey, which will ever remain one of the 

 most instructive and remarkable for physical geography *. 



In it, he places the mighty influence of the neighbourhood of 

 the sea in a clear light, and the very remarkable distinction 

 thjence arising, between the climate of the continent and that of 

 the sea-coast. To the severe winter, on the east side, summer 

 succeeds, in a few weeks, with continual clear and serene wea- 



• Topographisk-statistiske Samlinger, udgivne Selskabet fur Norges, vel 

 den Deels 2 det Bind. Christiana, 1817. 



