REVIEWS. 45 



"11. A detailed examination of the Bergs-fiord, Jbkuls-fiord, and Qven- 

 anger range has been already recommended (page 84). 



" 12. Eveiy opportunity should be taken to ascertain the direction of the 

 abraiding and smoothing agency, which has left such extraordinary traces 

 along the coast between the Throndhj em-fiord and the Lofoddens ; and in 

 general it should be sought to observe how far the stria? correspond or not 

 in direction with the general declivity of the ground, or whether they are 

 in any case extensively parallel with the coast. 



"13. The limits of vegetation of the birch and the snow line should be 

 observed wherever practicable ; but, with regard to the latter, the great 

 difficulty of ascertaining the extreme limit of recession of the snow should 

 be borne in mind ; and the time of year, the character of the season, and 

 the exposure should be particularly noticed. 



" 14. The meteorology of Norway is in a state which is not creditable to 

 the acknowledged intelligence of the people and the eminence of its scien- 

 tific men. I know of but two places — Christiania and Kaa-fiord (separated 

 by 10° of latitude) — of which the mean temperature is known with any 

 accuracy. This is lamentable in a country whose climate is one of the 

 most interesting in Europe. The means of remedying it seems easy. Let 

 observations, in the first instance, be confined to the thermometer. It Is 

 impossible to doubt that a net-work, of say fifty stations, might be quickly 

 established over the entire country. The intelligent officers of the Royal 

 Marine and Trigonometrical Survey, the clergy (who have almost all had a 

 university education), the masters of schools and academies — like my well- 

 informed friend, Mr. Blom, at Tromso — the active magistrates and civil 

 officers, even the station holders and substantial merchants on the steam- 

 boat routes, would, probably, in many instances, lend a cheerful aid to so 

 simple and interesting an inquiry; whilst the combination of the results could 

 not be placed in better hands than those of the professors of Christiania." 



In chapter IX. the philosophic Professor shows how the temperature of 

 Norway is favourably modified by the heat brought northward by the 

 currents of the great Atlantic, clearly explaining the apparently anomalous 

 distribution of the isothermal lines, a phenomenon which majves Norway 

 comfortably inhabitable, while a country of similar latitude, in the southern 

 hemisphere, would be a desert waste. In this work many interesting obser- 

 vations will be found as to the limit of growth, in elevation, of certain plants; 

 he also shows how the simple peasants there, like our own, do not under- 

 stand how men climb mountains and endure privations merely for the love 

 of knowledge. The book, though known as Forbes's Norway, has appended 

 to it excursions in the high Alps of Dauphine, Berne, and Savoy, 



