AUTUMN. 



253 



that we would call vegetation there be more owing 

 to the sunless winter, or the perpetual beating of the 

 sun during the nightless portion of the summer. For 

 a considerable distance, there are few flowers, and 

 what may be considered as the trees, are not taller 

 than the smallest of our under shrubs ; while the few 

 trees that do raise their stunted forms to the height 

 of two or three feet, are chiefly evergreens, which 

 make shoots a tenth of an inch long in the course of 

 "the season of growth, that does not begin till June 

 is partly elapsed, and is over by the end of August, 

 or early in September. There are some berries ; 

 but there are no fruits, and not any large farinaceous 

 seeds to ripen. The first grasses that appear are 

 often viviparous, that is, the seeds germinate on the 

 stems, and the little plants take root in the ground, 

 before the snow descends to protect them from the 

 keen atmosphere of the winter. But there is HO 

 autumn ; no fall of the leaf ; no preparation of vege- 

 table nature for abiding the blast. There is, in fact, 

 no leaf to fall ; and in the other vegetables, prepara- 

 tion for the season is not required ; for, during the 

 winter, there are no vicissitudes to try their strength, 

 no rains, winds, frosts, and sunny blinks alternating 

 with each other, which require a certain degree of 

 stubbornness in the plant, so that its action may not 

 be excited by the one and killed by the other. 

 Hence, plants from these regions, or from great 

 heights on the mountains where the climate is in 

 some particulars similar, can but ill abide the change- 

 able nature of our winters, even in the most sheltered 

 situations. 



The arctic plant, not having to ripen and prepare 

 for the winter, can continue its action during the 

 whole of the short summer ; and as the plant re- 

 quires little or no preparation, the atmosphere gives 

 but slight announcement of winter coining. After 

 the sun has got from a fourth to a third of its low 

 and sloping circle, below the northern horizon during 

 the night, and there is yet a bright twilight in that 

 part of the sky, some day is more than usually tran- 

 quil, and the clouds " castle" about sunset, and 

 show tints more rich than usual, or the sky remains 

 cloudless, but there is a greenish yellow tint on the 

 twilight portion, across which the auroras play their 

 feathery beams toward the zenith, now concentrating 

 into one radiant pillar or curtain, and anon breaking 

 and starting into a thousand forms. The rude people 

 know the sign (for the less that there is to study 

 on the earth men contemplate the heavens the 

 mdfc, and hence in part the peculiar superstitions 

 and mythologies of those arctic tribes) they know 

 the sign, and if they be not " snow-dwellers," 

 they betake themselves to the winter hut. The 

 night turns, the north-wind is up, and the moisture 

 in the atmosphere, which appears to have been 

 increased on purpose by the heat of the halcyon 

 day, is congealed into small crystals of ice. Down 

 it pours, ere the ground has had time to be frozen 

 to any measurable depth ; and as the north has got- 

 ten the victory, it rages away for days or for weeks. 

 The wind roars and the snow drives, not in flakes, 

 but in fine powder as sharp as that of glass ; and 

 the grouse and other field birds, which winter 

 mere, are driven from those places into a closer 

 shelter; but are often caught by the storm, and 

 compelled to drive as it lists. Then the fur-clad 

 owl comes abroad to the slaughter, and the arctic 

 bear howls on the beach for another meal ere 



he takes to his repose. This storm usually comes 

 again and again, with tranquil pauses between, or 

 rather it pauses in one place by shifting to another ; 

 but generally it is so violent, and confined within so 

 limited a range, that its duration is not very long. 

 When it is over, the atmosphere is so completely 

 cleared of moisture, the surface of the earth so man- 

 tled in snow, the sky so clear, and the moon so 

 bright, that the people almost forget the absence of 

 the sun; and though the cold is piercingly severe to 

 a stranger, those who are inured to it feel it bearable 

 enough, even in their habitations of snow, till the sea- 

 son comes round, and the temperature rises till the 

 snow begins to melt, when they become unhealthy 

 and uncomfortable Nature prepares the wild animals 

 for this season, by an increase of covering, whether of 

 feathers or of fur ; and their colour changes wholly 

 or partially to white, which renders it still a worse 

 radiator of heat. 



Such is the transition from summer to winter, the 

 only semblance that there is of autumn in the regions 

 of extreme cold. There are, no doubt, some other 

 preparations. The water birds which abound on the 

 shores and banks, and in the open places, as far as 

 they can for the ice, as well as multitudes of those 

 birds not habitual swimmers, that resort to those places 

 to rear their broods on the abundance of insect and 

 other small life, which the uninterrupted action of the 

 sun calls forth during the summer, migrate southward 

 before the storm breaks ; and it is said that the whales 

 set out on their migrations. That the northern seas 

 are not then adapted for those unwieldy animals, which 

 do not appear to keep breathing holes in the ice like 

 the seals, and whom such a means of respiration would 

 not suit, as they must range far, and also near the sur- 

 face, before they can make a meal of the small sub- 

 stances on which they feed, is certain ; and it is also 

 certain that they do riot resort to the European shores 

 further to the south. Hence there is at least a pro- 

 bability that they range the ocean far and wide ; and 

 it may be, as is said, that they double Cape Horn, 

 and find their way to the northern parts of the Pacific. 

 The voyage is a long one, but the whale, notwith- 

 standing its Jjulk, is a fast sailer, estimated to make 

 way at the rate of more than twenty miles an hour, 

 and feed at the same time ; so that, from Davis's to 

 Behring's Straits would not be a voyage of many 

 weeks. The mother whales are said to take their 

 cubs round in that manner, so that in their youth they 

 are tempered to all seas. That whales do sometimes 

 pass from the one side of America to the other is cer- 

 tain : but whether they pass by Cape Horn, or find a 

 shorter passage in the north, which our navigators 

 have sought for but not found, is a point not abso- 

 lutely settled ; though, as they remain on the east 

 side till the ice begins to close in northerly, it is most 

 likely that they make their autumnal trip by the 

 south, but how they return is not so well ascertained, 

 as they are found early in the season as far to the 

 north as there are openings in the ice. That they 

 pass in some way is proved by the fact that spears 

 and harpoons of a form used only in the one sea, have 

 been found iu the bodies of whales captured in the 

 other. 



Having now adverted to the two extremes between 

 which the countries having a distinct and character- 

 istic autumn lie, we shall notice some of the pheno- 

 mena of that season in their intermediate places. But 

 here it is by no means easy to speak in general terms, 



