250 TREE LIFE IN ARCTIC REGIONS. 



be found and some, it may be, even to the pole 

 itself, while others seem to be confined to the bushy 

 belt of dwarf forest which frequently is found to extend 

 into the southern borders of this zone. This is a 

 subject upon which the annals of the polar regions 

 teem with interest, though we fear it will be impossible 

 to do justice to it in the short space we shall be able 

 to devote to it here. 



As a rule the Arctic Zone, except towards its 

 southern limits, is of course generally destitute of any- 

 thing like a regular forest growth. The extreme sever- 

 ity of the climate, the great length of the winters, and 

 the constant existence of frost in the deeper subsoil, 

 is of itself sufficient to forbid the possibility of any 

 luxuriant tree growth; nevertheless trees of several 

 kinds, of stunted growth, from our last division, " The 

 Great Forest Region of the Temperate Zone," do extend, 

 in many places, to a certain distance into this zone, though 

 we fear the materials for tracing the exact limits of 

 arboreal vegetation at this point are not forthcoming; 

 we are therefore unable to state exactly the furthest 

 northern limits of the forest, except at a few very well- 

 known points. In Norway, for instance, where on account 

 of the supposed set of the Gulf Stream, along its western 

 coasts, we might have expected timber to have reached 

 a very high latitude Professor Nordenskiold states 

 that " the Northern limit (of the forest) is near Trom- 

 soe."* (Lat. 69 39' 12" N.). A growth of dwarf 

 shrubs and bushes however extends in places nearly 

 to the shores of the polar sea thus, " In the neigh- 

 bourhood of the North Cape, at a little distance inland, 



* Voyage of the Vega, by Professor A. E. Nordenskiold, Vol. i, p. 

 42. Translated by Alexander Leslie, 1881. 



