296 On the Physical Geography of Norway. 



Norway audits Glaciers visited in 1851; followed by Jour- 

 nals of Excursions in the High Alps of Dauphine, Berne, 

 and Savoy. By James D. Forbes, D.C.L., F.R.S., Sec. U.S. 

 Ed., Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, and 

 of other Academies ; and Professor of Natural Philosophy 

 in the University of Edinburgh, 



(Continued from page 169.) 



§ 2. On some Peculiarities of the Climate of Norway. — 

 The time can hardly be said to be gone by when an erro- 

 neous belief was prevalent as to the utterly inhospitable cli- 

 mate of Norway. Bishop Pontopiddan cites the amusing 

 mistake of our English Bishop Patrick, who describes a Nor- 

 wegian as imagining a rosebush to be a tree on fire ; whereas 

 roses are common flowers in many parts of Norway. He 

 farther adds, that the harbour of Bergen is not oftener frozen 

 than the Seine at Paris, that is, two or three times in a century, 

 whilst the harbours of Copenhagen and Lubeck are frequent- 

 ly blockaded with ice. This he justly ascribes to the influ- 

 ence of the open sea. A still more singular fact is, that the 

 smallest piece of drift ice is unknown on any part of the Nor- 

 wegian coast, though it extends to lat. 71°, while off the coast 

 of North America, they are occasionally seen in lat. 41°* 

 Until a comparatively recent period, it was generally believed 

 that the temperature of the North Pole was 32°, of the equa- 

 tor about 86°, on an average of the year, and that everyplace 

 had an intermediate temperature depending solely on its la- 

 titude. The influence of sea or land in great masses in al- 

 tering the climate — the former as a general moderator of ex- 

 treme heat and cold, the latter in increasing the inequalities of 

 climate — was next perceived, and the inflections (as they are 

 called) of the isothermal lines, were clearly indicated by Von 

 Humboldt. The isothermal lines are lines which pass through 

 all points of the earth's surface in each hemisphere which 

 possess the same average temperature. If the temperature 

 depended solely on the latitude, they would form accurate 



* See the limit of drift ice indicated in the vignette map, accompanying the 

 Genera] Map of Norway in this volume. 



