186 HEAT OF THE WATERS. 



gets but ll°-9 C. (53°-42 F.) On the west coast, 

 and on the still colder east coast only 7°'6 C. 

 (45°'68 P.) There are small towns in the parts of 

 Siberia much farther north, and having a still lower 

 mean annual temperature than Yakutsk. Thus 

 Usty ansk, a little town at the mouth of the Yana, 

 has, with a mean temperature for the year of 

 -16°'4 C. (2°-48 F.) a mean for the summer of 

 9°-2 C. (48°'56 P.) and, therefore, a consider- 

 ably warmer summer than the North Cape of 

 Europe, which lies under the same latitude, and 

 whose mean yearly temperature reaches 0°'l C. 

 (32°-18 F.) 



Thus you see that the most inhospitable places 

 on our earth are not those in which the mean tem- 

 perature is the lowest, but those in which the 

 summer does not supply warmth sufficient for the 

 growth of plants. 



The most northern spots permanently inhabited 

 by man, and the last traces of cultivation of the 

 soil, are in Siberia beyond 70° N.L., while in 

 America they do not extend even to the Arctic 

 circle. The various bays and straits which branch 

 through the high north of America, and which are 

 all frozen in winter, can contribute as little as the 

 numerous lakes of the interior, to any actual miti- 

 gation of the winter-cold, while, however, they 

 prevent the temperature of summer from reaching 

 any great height. For there the whole summer 



