145 



rature show themselves to be more favourable in the eastern 

 portion of the Aldamic mountains than in the west, where the 

 limit of trees is said to be 1000 feet lower. On the Kapitan 

 mountain there were still larch at a height of 3780 feet; at 

 4000 feet nothing but lichens could be found. M. Ermann ob- 

 serves, that the larch does not form any knee-wood like the 

 Coniferae of our German mountains. In the neighbourhood 

 of the Arka he noticed a peculiar Conifera, the stem of which 

 was 3 inches in diameter and 10 12 feet in length : it grows 

 quite straight and slender, sending several stems from one 

 root, but in winter is bent so much to the earth that it is en- 

 veloped in snow, and thus it is ridden over without its pre- 

 sence being suspected. The cones are about half the size 

 of those of the Siberian Cedar, and likewise contain well- 

 flavoured seeds. 



In the journal of voyage of M. G. Rose* we find the very 

 important notice for the geography of plants, that M. Feder- 

 hoff had ascertained by measurement the summits of the 

 northern Ural to be from 8 to 9000 feet high, and that these 

 are even in 66 N. lat. free from snow. The snow occurs 

 there only in the saddle-shaped hollows between the separate 

 peaks, and on the eastern and northern declivities. 



M. Goeppertf has observed the vegetation on a drift of coal 

 burning beneath the surface near Plaenitz, not far from Zwickau. 

 At some places the drift comes up to the surface, and its ex- 

 tent is defined in winter by the green turf remaining free of all 

 snow, while in summer it is parched. At the chief places of 

 evolution of the hot gases M. Goeppert found it to be from 50 

 to 54 R. ; upon the hilly prominences, principally clothed with 

 moss, 35 36; in the parts covered with grass 14 30 R. He 

 enumerates a great number of plants which grew on this hot 

 soil ; it is true they were also found in the immediate vicinity, 

 but far less developed and not in full vegetation. The warm- 

 est point was a portion covered with a turf six inches thick, 

 which indicated, at a depth of three inches, 45 R. Although 



* Reise nach dem Ural, dem Altai, und dem kaspischen Meere, ausge- 

 fuhrt im Jahre, 1829, von A. v. Humboldt, Ehrenberg, und G. Rose, Berlin, 

 1837, p. 381. 



f Bemerkungen iiber das Vorkommen von Pflanzen in heissen Quellen 

 und in ungewbhnlich warmen Boden. Wiegmann's Archiv, 3ten Jahrgang, 

 p. 101. 



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