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 arid 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 



Eetula 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 myrtillus, 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- 



