118 



STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



G-eorge, in the same latitudes respectively as G-ottenburg and Geneva) 

 I .am indebted to Admiral Liitke's voyage of circumnavigation. 

 Iluluk and Danzig are nearly on the same parallel, and although the 

 mean temperature of Iluluk, owing to its insular climate and to a 

 cold sea-current, is somewhat lower than that of Danzig, yet the 

 winter temperature of the American station is milder than that of 

 the port on the Baltic. 



Snow is hardly ever seen on the banks of the Oregon or Columbia 

 River, and ice on the river lasts only a very few days. The lowest 

 temperature which Mr. Ball once observed there in the winter of 

 1833 was 6 of Reaumur below the freezing point, or 17.4 Fahren- 

 heit (Message from the President of the United States to Congress, 

 1844, p. 160 ; and Forry, dim. of the U. States, pp. 49, 67, and 73). 

 A cursory glance at the summer and winter temperatures above 

 given, shows that on and near the west coast, a true insular climate 

 prevails. The winter cold is less than in the western parts of the 

 Old Continent, and the summers are much cooler. The most striking 

 contrast is presented by comparing the mouth of the Oregon with 

 Forts Snelling and Howard, and the Council Bluffs in the interior 

 of the Mississippi and Missouri basin (lat. 44 46) where, to 

 speak in the language of Buffon, we find an excessive, or true conti- 



