FLORA. 157 



ascending heights in these climates. The vegetation with 

 which we are familiar in the valleys gradually disappears 

 under our feet. The Scotch fir soon leaves us; then the 

 birches become shrivelled ; now they wholly disappear ; 

 and between the bushes of mountain willows and dwarf 

 birches, the innumerable clusters of berry-bearing herbs 

 have room to spread blae-berries on the dry heights, and 

 mountain brambles on the marshy ground. We at last 

 rise above them ; the blae-berries no longer bear ; they 

 appear singly, with few leaves, and no longer in a bushy 

 form. At last they disappear, and they are soon followed 

 by the mountain willows. The dwarf birch alone braves 

 the height and the cold; but at last it also yields before 

 reaching the limit of perpetual snow ; and there is abroad 

 border before reaching this limit, on which, beside mosses, 

 a few plants only subsist with great difficulty. Even the 

 reindeer moss, which rises in the woods with the blae- 

 berry in luxuriance of growth, is very unfrequent on such 

 heights. On the top of the mountains, which is almost a 

 table-land, there is no ice, it is true, nor glaciers ; but the 

 snow never leaves these heights ; and a few single points 

 and spots above the level are alone clear of snow for a few 

 weeks. It is a melancholy prospect ; nothing in life is 

 any longer to be seen, except perhaps occasionally an eagle 

 in his flight over the mountains from one fiord to another/ 

 On Akka Solki, one of these mountains on the western 

 coast, which is about 3392 English feet in height, the fol- 

 lowing limits of the different productions were accurately 

 marked : 



Eng. Feet. 



Limit of snow in latitude 70, . . . , . 3514 



Betula. nana, or dwarf birch, 2742 



Salix myrsinitis, or whortle-leaved willow, . . . 2150 

 Salix lanata, or downy willow, rises above the Betula 

 nana, and approaches the limit of perpetual snow. 



Vaccinium myrtiltus, or blae-berry 2031 



Betula alba, or birch tree, 1579 



We should find following each other in the same order, 

 but in broader zones, in the tropical, sub-tropical, temper- 



