menon. To take an obvious example, Axel Blytt, the Norwegian botanist, has by his 

 studies of the peat-bogs in Norway, been able to separate 7 different zones — four layers ol 

 peat with three- intervening layers of remains of forests — representing deposits after 

 as many coresponding moist and dry periods, indicating that three drier periods of climate 

 alternated with four moist ones since the glacial epoch. I had, unfortunately, no 

 time or occasion for digging out in any of all the peat-bogs in which the Urjankai country 

 abounds, and which would no doubt bring to hght many interesting facts. The bogs 

 were now frequently more or less dried up, and the original vegetation had been gradu- 

 ally mixed up with other plants, or, in the process of time, wholly expelled by these 



Fig 43. From the lower part of the subalpine regions on the south side of the Sayansk moun- 

 tains. In the background drying up conifers. 



invaders, which do not belong to the typical Sphagnum swamps. In similar places were 

 often to be found common copse-wood of Betula humilis, Betula rotundifolia, or in 

 places, high and well grown firs and various Salices, and with an undergrowth of divers 

 species of grasses and sedges, especially Carex caespilosa, which might form tussocks 

 to over one meter high, Vaccinium Myrlillas, Vaccinhim vitis idaea, and besides, also 

 very commonly Vaccinium uliginosum subspec. imberbe nov. subspec, Rubus arcticus, 



71 



