Sciences of Meteorology and Terrestrial Magnetism. 173 



at lat. 66°, tlie respective elevations are 3,250 and 3,700 feet ; and at 

 lat. 70°, 2,900 and 3,350 feet. Here, as in the Himalaya, the rainfall 

 decreases rapidly inland, the quantity deposited and the consequent 

 prevalence of a cloudy state of the atmosphere having, in both cases, 

 a manifest relation to the depression of the line of perpetual congela- 

 tion. In Scandinavia the climate towards the coast has the insular 

 type ; that of Bergen is equable and damp : the heads of the larger 

 fiords have less rain and a higher mean temperature ; while the climate 

 of the interior from Christiania northwards tends to approach the 

 excessive or continental character. How influential are other causes 

 besides distance from the equator, is strikingly shown by the circum- 

 stances of South Georgia, South Shetland, and Cockburn island in the 

 southern hemisphere. These, though in a latitude varying from that 

 of the mouth of the Tees to that of the Orkneys, are clad in snow to 

 the sea level during most of the year ; and produce among them but 

 two herbaceous plants and one grass ; the rest of the vegetation being of 

 mosses and lichens. 



(14.) The only observations that we know of as yet recorded regard- 

 ing the temperatures on high mountains in these kingdoms, are those 

 made within the last few years, by the late lamented Mr. Miller of 

 Whitehaven. The minima given in a former memoir by this author 

 {Philosophical Transactions, 1852), are stated in a paper in the Edin- 

 burgh Transactions for 1853-54, to have been found quite erroneous, 

 owing to a change in the instruments, not discovered at the time. The 

 mean difference between the absolute minima at Seathwaite, and the top 

 of Scafell Pike, varies from 12°-7 to 13°-8 in a difference of altittide 

 of 2,798 feet. The average fall of temperature, as we ascend on the 

 surface, may be taken here at about F in 215 feet. The details will 

 be found in the latter paper. The instruments were placed upon Scafell 

 Pike, the highest mountain in England, elevation 3,166 feet ; and the 

 monthly minima are as follows : — For the year 1853 in order, 10°, 8°, 11°, 

 11°, 20°, 35°, 37°, 35°, 29°, 27°, 23°, 12°. In the Seathwaite valley, 

 adjoining on the N.E., at a station 368 feet above the sea level, the 

 minima of the several months, in order, were as follows : — 27°, 20°, 22°, 

 33°, 30°, 47°, 50°, 45°, 42°-5, 35°, 31°, 19°. The winter mean at White- 

 haven, deduced from a long scries of observations, by Mr. Miller, is 44°'7 

 P. These temperatures are in no way remarkable ; much greater degrees 

 of cold having been experienced in Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midland 

 Counties, and at London, during the months of December and January, 

 than on these mountains. While Seathwaite shows but 19° and 18° 

 v., the minima in the other places just named, ranged from 10° to — ^4" 

 V. In I'act thc^c mountain valleys, and even mountain tops have a com- 



