338 Limits of perpetual Snow In the North. [May, 



I might mention the name of another gentleman, who I know was 

 engaged in the same investigation ; but 1 conceive it to be unneces- 

 sary. How it should be unwoithv of a scientific man to believe 

 that there are other people in Great Britain capable of discovering 

 the atomic theory besides Mr. Dalton or Mr. Higgins (if Mr. Nash 

 chooses to suljstitute that name) I do not understand. But even if 

 it should be ever so unscientific, I must still believe it ; because 

 ray knowledge of Dr. Wollaston's sagacity prevents me from enter- 

 taining any doubt on the subject. Nay, 1 will go further than that, 

 and say that I believe if Newton never had existed we should at 

 this moment have been in possession of the theory of gravitation. 

 Nature has not been so stinted in her gifts as to confine the facul- 

 ties of invention and discovery to one individual, or one nation, or 

 one class of society. 



I have now considered the whole of Mr. Nash's assertions, and 

 leave the unbiassed reader to draw his own consequences. Perhaps 

 I ought to apologize for the length of this article ; but I could not 

 well lay the subject before the public in less space. I take it for 

 granted that nothing which Mr. Nash may afterwards publish in his 

 own vindication can render it necessary f.r me to resume the 

 subject. 



Article III. 



On the Limits of perpetual Snow in the North. By Leopold Von 

 Buch, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin. 



{Concluded from p. 220.) 



If we advance ten degrees farther north than this latitude to the 

 remotest cliffs of the continent of Europe, in latitude 70° and 71% 

 we need not be suiprised in so remote a situation, and so much 

 nearer the pole, to find the snov>' line not rising to any great height 

 above the surface of the earth. From the accounts of the violence 

 of the Lapland cold, one would readily believe th.at the snow line 

 does not rise much higher than the surface of the sea. But the 

 first appearance of the land shows us that this is far from being the 

 case. For even in the 70th degree of latitude, all cultivation is 

 not at an end. We still find gardens and corn fields, villages at 

 the mouth of the torrents, and forests in the valle5-s. Altevgaardy 

 the residence of the bailiff xn the interior of AUeiifiord, as it ap- 

 pears in summer, would even in this climate be called rich, It 

 lies in the middle of a tall fir wood, with magnificent views, on the 

 other side of the fiord, of rocks and snow mountains. Through 

 the valley rushes the mighty stream, Eliehackeii, which is the 

 means of supporting at least 20 houses, tliat lie in the midst of its 

 fields and meadows. Who can here think of the snow line ? The 



