Intense Cold affecting the Growth of Trees. 1 27 



started to my feet on hearing the loud whooping of an owl, 

 and before they could well remark on the cause of my de- 

 parture I had disappeared, and was wading in the deep 

 snow towards the object of my solicitations, which turned 

 out to be a fine specimen of the snowy owl. In a trice 

 I had its skin off, when the condition of the body became 

 apparent. Layers of fat covered the entire carcase, thicker 

 in the armpits and along the flanks, but universally dis- 

 tributed over the frame, whilst the internal organs were 

 loaded with it. But I was too tired to think over the 

 owl's obesity, and soon fell asleep, coiled up in blankets 

 on the spruce tops, where I lay not " on a bed of roses," 

 being awoke several times by the cracking of the branches 

 and trunks of the forest trees, consequent on the lowness 

 of the temperature, sounds to which my companions had 

 been accustomed, but they were novel to me, and towards 

 midnight became so frequent and loud that one might have 

 imagined pistols were being fired all around the camp. 



In certain forest tracts it will be noticed that spruces, 

 especially the black sort, also birch and other hard and 

 soft wood trees, are furrowed by deep longitudinal seams, 

 extending often throughout the entire length of the trunk, 

 and even penetrating to the pith. This splitting of the wood 

 is owing to extreme cold acting on the vegetable fibre, and 

 no doubt produces the reports above-mentioned, which are 

 also occasioned by the snapping across of the decayed 

 branches. I did not observe the longitudinal rents in sap- 

 lings ; it may be for the reason that their fibres admit of 

 more elasticity than the old tree. Moreover, although the 

 rent does often extend to the centre, there is seemingly no 

 evil effect on the health of the tree, and in the course of 

 a few years it gets filled up by new bark, when the outline 

 has much the appearance of the seam produced by light- 

 ning. The explosion consequent on such a rent is often 

 startling; and although the fissure may not be evident 



