75 



observes, " Agriculture cannot exert her powers, not 

 labour produce harvests, where nature has denied the 

 means. The eye discovers nothing on every side ex- 

 cept firs and rugged rocks ; and it would seem as if 

 famine had here fixed her eternal residence. 



" There is somewhat uncommonly savage and in- 

 hospitable in the whole circumjacent country here. 

 Even in this lovely season, when all animate and in- 

 animate nature wakes from the long slumber of a po- 

 lar winter, every thing is joyless and unfertile, and 

 the rays of the sun are reflected from the expanse of 

 stone that invests the city round on every side, and 

 from whose bosom no verdure springs to regale the 

 eye."* 



To what, let me ask, shall we attribute the deficien- 

 cy of soil throughout these gloomy and inhospitable 

 regions? Or why this almost uniform barrenness, and 

 even repulsive sterrility and naked rocks, throughout 

 almost all the high northern latitudes of North Ame- 

 rica, and even of Europe and Asia ?f Were they ne- 

 ver covered with soil like other parts of the world ? 

 doubtless they were. Or, if they have once experienc- 

 ed the unappeased wrath, the eternal denunciations of 

 an offended God, why have not the different portions 

 of the globe, in a more southern latitude, experienced 

 it in like manner ? It will be said, perhaps, that they 

 have in a considerable degree. In reply to this, it 

 may be observed that if there are a few solitary in- 



* Wraxall's Travels. t Wraxall's Description of Sweden, 



