238 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



that the crossing of it was like passing from summer into winter. 

 While all is verdure at Cai)e Prince of Wales, in America, the opposite 

 point of East Cape, in Asia, is covered, as we are told, with "eternal 

 ice." "The vegetation," says Chamisso, "in the interior of Kotzebue's 

 Sound is considerably higher than in the interior of St. Lawrence Bay; 

 the willows are higher, the grasses richer, all vegetation more juicy and 

 stronger." "Ice and snow," says Kotzebue, "have maintained their 

 rule here" (in Asia) "since last year, and in this state we find the old 

 coast; Avhile in America, even the summits of the highest mountains 

 are free from snow; there the navigator sees the coast covered witli a 

 green carpet, while here, black mossy rocks frown upon him, with snow 

 and icicles." In fact, a few hours' sailing directly to the westward sunk 

 the thermometer from 59 to 43 degrees of Fahrenheit. 



We can readily conceive why at Melville Island, surrounded with 

 eternal ice, the thermometer should descend to 87 degrees below the 

 freezing point, and still lower on the elevated plains in th'e interior of 

 North America, where half the surface consists of frozen lakes and 

 swamps,* but we cannot comprehend why the same warmth of the 

 Great Pacific, which tem])ers the rigorous cold of the Frozen Ocean 

 on the American side of Behring Strait, should refuse to mitigate the 

 severity of the weather on the side of Asia, more especially as it appears, 

 fromrepeated observations made on the present voyage, that the current 



from the south was equally strong on both sides of the strait. 

 21 The difference is still greater between the climates of the two 



shores separated by the Atlantic, but then the sea is much wider. 

 While on the eastern coast of North America all is desolation and 

 sterility, even so low as the 55th degree of latitude, and ice and snow 

 maintain a perpetual existence at the 60th parallel, we find on the 

 coast of Norway (10 degrees higher) that all is life and animation and 

 beauty. "Altengaard," says the celebrated Von Buch, " is a surpris- 

 ing place. It is situated in the midst of a forest of Scotch firs, upon a 

 green meadow, with noble views tlirough the trees of the fiord, with 

 its numerous points projectingonebeyondtlie other into the vast sheet 

 of water, and closed by the plains of Leyland and Langfiord. The 

 surrounding woods are so beautiful and so diversified! We perceive 

 through the boughs on the opposite side of the water the foaming tor- 

 rent descending Irom the rocks, and communicating to the saw-mills per- 

 petual motion. It appears, when we enter the wood I'romthe beach, as 

 if we were transported to the park of Berlin." Yet Altengaard is close 

 upon the 70th parallel of latitude. 



M. Chamisso seems to think that he has hit upon a more philosophical 

 theory for this great difference of temperature in the same parallels of 

 latitude than those of Humboldt, Von Buch, and Wallenberg, grounded 

 on the sea and land breezes, the monsoons and trade winds; but as his 

 ideas appear to us not a little crude, and as he declines to submit his 

 " new theory to caculations, or try it by the touchstone of facts," it 

 will be sufficient to refer our. readers to it (vol. iii, p. 279), We have 

 more respect for his observations on the sensible objects of the Creation, 

 and readily subscribe to the correctness of his views in the following 

 paragraph : 



As, on the one hand, in proportion as you go farther in the land towards the north, 

 the woods become less lofty, the vegetation gradnally decreases, animals become 

 scarcer, and, lastly (as at Nova Zembla), the reindeer and the Glires vanish with the 

 last plants, and only birds of prey prowl about the icy streams for their food, so, on 



* Captain Franklin observed it as low as 89 degrees below the freezing point in 

 latitude 64°. 



