CHAPTER XXI 
CONIFERS 
THE coldest place in the world is said to be a certain 
settlement in Siberia called Werchojansk. It is not so 
very far north (67° 34’ N. lat.), but yet the cold is 
almost impossible to realise. During the three winter 
months the thermometer is never above — 24.3° C. 
and occasionally sinks to —64° C. Indeed it is only 
in the four months, June to September, that the mean 
temperature is above the freezing point. July is the 
hottest month, but the highest temperature recorded is 
only 29° to 30° C." 
Now Werchojansk is in the Siberian forest region, so 
that trees do manage to exist even in this climate. 
It can hardly be expected that when they have only 
some two months in which to grow, the results will 
be at all remarkable. A tree of Pinns cembra about 
6 feet in height, for instance, will probably be seventy 
years old, but the fact that they can grow at all in such 
places as Werchojansk seems to prove that it is not 
mere frost and snow that hinders the northward exten- 
sion of the forest. 
All round the North Pole, though at a very respect- 
ful distance from it, there seems to be a belt of coni- 
ferous forest. No doubt thickets of birch go even 
farther north than the conifers; but pines, spruce, or 
larch form the great northern woodlands, and the de- 
ciduous oaks and beeches are only found in much more 
southerly latitudes, 
It is not the cold but the drought which prevents 
these conifers from growing much farther north than 
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