198 



temperate zones; so much so that the botanist on the coast of 

 Arctic Siberia or America might readily fancy himself on the 

 Sierra Nevada at a height of ten to twelve thousand feet above 

 the sea. 



There is no line of perpetual snow on any portion of the 

 Arctic regions known to explorers. The snow disappears every 

 summer, not only from the low, sandy shores and boggy tundras, 

 but also from the tops of the mountains, and all the upper slopes 

 and valleys with the exception of small patches of drifts and 

 avalanche-heaps hardly noticeable in general views. ' But though 

 nowhere excessively deep or permanent, the snow-mantle is 

 universal during winter, and the plants are solidly frozen and 

 buried for nearly three fourths of the year. In this condition 

 they enjoy a sleep and rest about as profound as death, from 

 which they awake in the months of June and July in vigorous 

 health, and speedily reach a far higher development of leaf and 

 flower and fruit than is generally supposed. On the drier banks 

 and hills about Kotzebue Sound, Cape Thompson, and Cape 

 Lisburne, many species show but little climatic repression, and 

 during the long summer days grow tall enough to wave in the 

 wind, and unfold flowers in as rich profusion and as highly colored 

 as may be found in regions lying a thousand miles farther south. 



Unalaska 



To the botanist approaching any portion of the Aleutian 

 chain of islands from the soutward during the winter or spring 

 months, the view is severely desolate and forbidding. The 

 show comes down to the water's edge in solid white, interrupted 

 only by dark, outstanding bluff's with faces too steep for snow to 

 lie on, and by the backs of rounded rocks and long, rugged reefs 

 beaten and overswept by heavy breakers rolling in from the 

 Pacific, while throughout nearly every month of the year the 

 higher mountains are wrapped in gloomy, dripping storm-clouds. 



Nevertheless, vegetation here is remarkably close and luxur- 

 iant, and crowded with showy bloom, covering almost every 

 foot of the ground up to a height of about a thousand feet 

 above .the sea — the harsh trachytic rocks, and even the cindery 



