GEOGRAPHICAL DEDUCTIONS 55 



metals.^"^ On the other hand the American mountains are 

 solid; not naked rocks covered with moss but everywhere with 

 good black soil/°^ and therefore not, as are the former, barren, 

 with stunted dwarf trees among the rocks, but densely covered 

 to the highest peaks with the finest trees; also they are decked 

 with short grass and herbs, some succulent, some drier, but not 

 with moss, marsh vegetation, and water plants.^os xhe springs, 

 of which I discovered so many, flow out of the valleys at the 

 base of the mountains, and not as in Siberia everywhere among 

 the rocks, often up to the summits and in stagnant hollows, ^o^ 

 The plants are about the same size and appearance whether 

 found on the summit of the mountains or lower down, owing to 

 the equally distributed interior heat and moisture. In Asia, 

 on the other hand, the plants are often so different according to 

 their station that one is tempted to make different species of 

 the same plant if one is not mindful of this general difference, 

 because a plant which in the valley is two ells high often on the 

 mountains reappears scarcely half a foot high. — In America on 

 the 60th parallel one sees most beautiful forests directly on the 

 shore, while in latitude 51° in Kamchatka willow and alder 

 bushes only begin 20 versts from the sea, birch woods not nearer 

 than 30 to 40 versts, not to mention that no conifers are found 

 there but are first seen 60 versts inland from the mouth of the 

 Kamchatka River.^^o In latitude 62°, for instance from Anadyrsk 



106 The student of the history of science will be interested in these and 

 other obsolete views, such as that immediately below on the geothermal 

 control of plant distribution (see also footnote 113), expressed by Steller 

 in this summary of the physical geography of Kayak Island. 



The clause in the next sentence, "with stunted dwarf trees among the 

 rocks, " in the MS occurs at this point but in the fuller form of "without 

 trees or vegetation, except here and there among the rocks a few low and 

 hardy shrubs." (J) 



1"' The MS reads: "their rocks not covered with moss but with good 

 black soil." 



108 The MS here has "as in Asia." 



109 In the MS the second half of the sentence reads: "and not as in 

 Siberia everywhere, even on the summits of mountains and as lakes." 



no In about 56^° N. (see Vol. i, PI. I). 



