'176 Analysts of Scientific Boohs and Memoirs. 



The Glaciers of course descend below the snow-line ; in the Alps to 3000 

 feet ; in southern Scandinavia to 1000 ; and in Lapland to the sea. 



The succeeding section treats shortly of the limits of plants ; whence 

 the final limit of trees in Scandinavia descends to the northward from 2900 

 to 1500 feet, and similar differences are observed between the west and 

 •east sides as in the snow-line. The north and south sides of the Alps 

 have the extreme limit of trees at 7000 and 5000 feet, in the Pyrenees from 

 6900 to 6500. The highest growing trees in Scandinavia are the Betula 

 alba J and in the Alps and Pyrenees different kinds of the genus Pinus. 

 (Larix, Abies, Sylvestris, Cembra, Uncinata.) In Scandinavia the high- 

 est limits of the Pinus sylvestris extends from 200 to 700 feet. The oak 

 and beech extend on the Alps to the height of 4600-4800 feet on the south, 

 and 4100 on the north side, and to 4900 on the south declivity of the Py- 

 renees. The limit of the chestnut is 2500 in the Alps, and 2800 in the 

 Pyrenees. 



In Scandinavia barley may be cultivated to 2000 feet in lat. 60° and 61°, to 

 SOO in 67°, and in flat places at 70°. In the northern Alps, the limit of 

 corn is 3400 feet, on the south side 4500, and the vine appears at 2500 feet 

 which on the north side is cultivated only in low places. In the Pyrenees^ 

 corn rises to 5200 feet on the south, and 4900 on the north exposure. M. 

 Schouw justly remarks, that barley which is cultivated at an annual tem- 

 perature of Cent, in Scandinavia, cannot, from the less comparative warmth 

 of the summer, reach maturity under that of + 5° Cent, in the Alps. 



Section sixteenth treats of the animals of the mountain districts. We 

 need only mention the following as common to all. Canis Lupus, Canis 

 Vulpes, Felis Lynx, and Ursus Arctos. Peculiar to the Alps and Pyrenees, 

 Antilopa rupicapra ; to the Alps only, Capra Ibex ondi Marmot a Alpina, 

 which live in the very highest Alps ; peculiar to Scandinavia, Cervus Ta- 

 randus, Cervus Aloes, Gulo. In domestic animals, the reindeer in Scandi- 

 navia takes the place of the ass and mule, which are awanting. The next 

 section in due order proceeds to treat of Man ; M. Schouw undertaking 

 to prove the weakness of the theory, that human intellect dwindles as we 

 advance from temperate to polar climes, and that eternal snows are agents 

 calculated to '* chill the genial current of the soul." The debate has been 

 made one rather of mental than natural philosophy, and at all events is too 

 important to be entered upon and concluded in half a page of wide print, 

 as our author has done. We, therefore, decline entering on the controversy, 

 and shall merely add, as the principal natural fact which M. Schouw states, 

 that Cretinism, that dreadful visitation of many vallies of the Alps and 

 Pyrenees, is unknown in Scandinavia. 



A concluding section methodizes the whole results ; and in closing M« 

 Schouw's work, and in concluding our analysis, we can only strengthen our 

 remarks at the commencement, and our hope, that, if the author is about 

 to give to the world a larger treatise on this boundless subject, he will 

 adopt a method somewhat less minute and tedious. His able Essay 

 on Ancient Climate, and his present Specimen lead us to hope, that we shall 

 be favoured with many more productions of his pen, and none we should 

 more willingly hail, than an account of the climate and vegetation of Italy, 

 which we observe he promises in his present pamphlet. 



