456 I. P. Косн. 
view of the landscape, I take occasion to draw attention to the fact 
that the cumulus clouds, so common elsewhere, are almost entirely 
unknown in Northeast Greenland. In return a kind of cloud, which 
WEGENER has called the føhn cloud, occurs so frequently that partly 
by reason of its peculiar form — it leaves its special impress on the 
sky of the coast land (see the illustration material in Meteorol. Ter- 
minbeob. am Danmarks Havn, Medd. om Gronl, XLII, pp. 308—309). 
The manner in which day and night alternate within the Arctic 
circle appears with particular clearness in North Greenland, on account 
of the high, northerly position of this country. The proportion is 
shown in the table below: 
| Approximate duration | Approximate duration 
Locality Latit. of the winter night of the summer day 
from—to | days | from—to | days 
Dove Bugt::. 292.24: 76°30’ | 12/X—3/II | about 104 | 25/IV—19/VIII | about 117 
North point ofGreenland. 88°30’ | 1/XI—12/II — 144) 6/IV—8IIX — 156 
Under climatie conditions like the ones just now described it 
may seem peculiar that organic life, and in the circumstances rather 
a prolific one, can thrive in these localities. For the vegetation and 
for certain lower animals which, by reason of the cold, must in any 
case pass the winter in a lifeless dormant state, it does not play any 
real part, whether they are cooled off to - 10° or to - 40°; life is 
extinct in them, and it is therefore scarcely reasonable to suppose 
that the winter darkness plays any part, as far as these organisms 
are concerned. On the other hand, the winter storms and the 
drifting of the snow become of importance, particularly in the case 
of plants. 
On the slopes and hilly tracts most exposed to the wind the 
storms and the drifting of the snow throughout the winter exert a 
purely mechanical wear and tear. And further, as the snow cannot 
remain on the ground, the moisture conveyed to these places during 
the summer is a minimum. Quite apart from the conditions of the 
soil localities of this kind therefore belong to the most barren 
stretches. 
In the lee of slopes facing east, southeast and south snow may 
accumulate in very large drifts, so large in fact that they become 
perennial, and in the autumn, when the melting of the snow ceases, 
leave a residuum of an ice-like character. That the larger snow- 
drifts, which can hardly melt away in the course of one summer, 
form a serious obstacle to the local vegetation is self-evident; but 
