30if REMARKS AND OPINIONP. 



Mageroe, under the 70tli degree, witli its jagged, 

 naked rocks, among which large and extended 

 masses of snow He every wliere, at the end of 

 July seems to be a counterpart to the aspect of the 

 sliore of the Bay of St. Lawrence. The birch, 

 liowever, thougli stunted, grows more on the de- 

 chvities of the mountains, at an elevation of four 

 hundred feet. Leopold Von Buch estimates the 

 mean temperature of the air of this island at 1^-° 

 II., and the height of the perpetual snow at two 

 thousand feet. It, however, never freezes in well- 

 closed cellars, and the grass does not cease grow- 

 ing under the snow. A rivulet flows during the 

 whole winter, near Hammerfest, at Qualoe. 



We see, on the other hand, on the coasts to 

 which our attention is directed, a more luxuriant 

 vegetation ; bushes, (high trees, Mackenzie,) thriv- 

 ing on a soil eternally frozen on a ground of pure 

 ice. 



Wahlemberg (de Vegetatione et Climate in Hel- 

 vetia Septentrionali, p. 84.) has proposed this 

 law for Europe . " The mean temperature of the 

 air towards the 46th degree of north latitude, is 

 equal to the temperature of the earth, in level 

 countries, raised but little above the surface of the 

 sea. From this centre, the temperature of the air 

 decreases more quickly, as well towards the north 

 as towards the summits of the mountains, than the 

 temperature of the earth ; and, towards the south, 

 more quickly increases, so that in the north, and 



