284 CLIMATAL DISTRIBUTION 



groves in which they not merely cover the surface 

 of the earth, but are suspended by thousands in the 

 air, without any immediate connexion with it. 



We may begin our survey at Spitzbergen, where 

 the summer is only a few weeks, and the number 

 of plants is of course very limited, or at the ex- 

 treme north of Baffin's Bay, where it is doubtful 

 if there be one land plant, unless we are to sup- 

 pose that the " red snow " is a living vegetable. 

 But even there, or at least as far in that direction 

 as man can inhabit, there is some substitute ; 

 and where the land ceases to afford any thing but 

 a place to rest on, the sea still abounds with 

 wealth. The seal and whale tribes, though warm 

 blooded animals, and requiring to breathe the free 

 air, contrive to summer and to winter there ; and 

 in the extreme north of America, the Esquimaux, 

 who migrate a little southward in the summer, 

 and seek their subsistence by hunting and river 

 fishing, return northward in the winter, build 

 their habitations of ice, feel warm in them, just 

 because the cold is top intense for allowing any of 

 the ice to melt, even by the smoke and heat of 

 the lamps, which serve at once for light and culi- 

 nary purposes, and watch the seals at their 

 breathing-holes for fresh provisions. 



Even farther to the southward, the plants are 

 few ; and such as do appear are of the most hum- 

 ble appearance. In Iceland there are a few 

 stunted shrubby bushes, but none of them of size 

 enough for a hop-pole, or even for a substantial 

 walking-stick. Notwithstanding, the Icelanders 

 have plentiful supplies of timber, wafted to their 

 shores without any trouble or expense of importa- 

 tion. Great part of North America that is the 



