1S14.] Limits of perpetual Snow in the North. 343 



wheat are raised, but all kinds of apples, pears, and cherries ripen 



in abundance; while in the same latitude at the mouth of the 



Jiord, corn can be raised with difficulty, and garden-stuff not at all. 



At the height of the snow line, this annihilation of the summer 

 on the sea sjiore shows itself immediately. For tlie height of this 

 line depends entirely upon the sum of the heat of the snow melt- 

 ing months, and not upon the cold of winter, nor the mean tem- 

 perature of the year. Otherwise it could not at the North Cape 

 be so much lower than at vllte?! : for the mean temperature of 

 Alten is by no means so high as that of the North Cape. At 

 j^lten mercury often freezes, at the North Cape never. At Alten 

 we frequently see the thermometer standing at — 13% at the North 

 Cape very seldom below 10°, or 5°, and is the extreme. Ac- 

 cordingly, the sea does not freeze in the neighbourhood of the 

 North Cape. When we go 20 or 30 German miles out to sea in 

 winter, we see ice islands at a distance. 



Still more: if the general annual temperature determined the 

 height of the snow line above the surface of the sea, then in 

 Vieolrorg, and still more at Torneo, in the 65th degree of latitude, 

 it ought not to be higher than at Mageroe in the 7 1st degree. And 

 yet what a difference between the nature of these places ! And how 

 different likewise is the temperature of the summer, and of those 

 months which can have any influence on the height of the snow 

 line ! 



If we compare the observations made by Father Hell from the 

 winter of 1768 to June 1769, at Wordohuus, a place even colder 

 than the North Cape, with the observations of Mr. Bayly in Ka- 

 moejiord on Mageroe, and of Mr. Jeremiah Dixon at Hammerfestf 

 as they observed the transit of Venus in 1769, in these places; 

 and if we join to them some of those observations which I was 

 enabled to make during my twelve days' residence at the North 

 Cape, we shall find the monthly temperature in that place nearly 

 as in the following table, 



January 22-08° Fahr. 



February 23* 16 



March 24-78 



April 30-00 



May 34-07 



June 40-145 



July 46-625 



August 43-25 



September 37'625 



October 32-000 



November 25-75 



December 25-72 



Mean for the year 32-100 



The observations of Mr. Julin at Uleolorg, in the 65th degree 



