560 NOVA ZEMBLA. 



55th parallel of latitude that is to say, a little lower than in 

 America; but beyond this line we meet again, as I have already said, 

 with towns of some importance, such as Tobolsk, the capital of 

 Siberia, in lat. 58 11' north; Irkutsk, in lat. 58 16' north; and 

 lakutsk, in lat. 62. All this northern part of Siberia is only dis- 

 tinguished by the greater rigour of its climate, and by a more and 

 more scanty vegetation from the great Steppes, of which it is the 

 continuation. However, the north-eastern extremity, comprising the 

 peninsula of Kamtschatka, bristles with volcanic mountains which 

 still exhibit some craters in activity, notably those of Avatcha and 

 Klioutchevsko'i, or Klutschew. The latter belches forth its fires from 

 one of the loftiest summits of the globe. 



In Continental Europe, the only Polar Lands, properly so called, 

 are Russian Lapland and the deeply-indented coast of Northern 

 Russia. To the north of the most advanced point of that coast, and 

 separated from the continent by a narrow arm of the sea, lie three 

 almost contiguous islands, which form Nova Zembla (lat. 68 50' to 

 76 north) ; desert islands, inhabited by a few fishermen, and con- 

 taining a few vegetables and animals. The western side of the group 

 is traversed by a mountain-range 2000 feet in height. Finally, 

 almost in the centre of the Frozen Sea, and at nearly equal distances 

 from the Old and the New World, rises the gloomy archipelago of 

 Spitzbergen (that is, the Peaked Mountains), first visited by Barentz 

 in 1596, and lying between the parallels of 77 and 81, and the 

 meridians of 10 and 24 east of Greenwich. Their summits, I need 

 hardly tell you, are shrouded in eternal ice and snow, and separated 

 by narrow valleys, or rather ravines, mostly occupied with those 

 slowly-moving ice-rivers called glaciers. The surrounding seas swarm 

 with fish, and the frozen wastes of the islands are haunted by the 

 Arctic fox, the reindeer, and the white bear. The walrus and the 

 seal live upon their shores, which bristle everywhere with lofty 

 granitic rocks, and glaciers that plunge down into the very waters. 

 Their extremities are constantly throwing off huge masses of ice, 

 which float out to sea, and in the shape of icebergs appal and 



