53 



PLATE XVII. 



KAMTSCHATKA. 



MEADOW IN THE AWATSCHA RIVER DISTRICT. 



July. 



This peninsula, situated on the extreme end of the old continent, so interesting to 

 the geologist, has little attraction for the botanist and zoologist, at least to those 

 from Europe. Not that Nature is less productive, or that there is a want of 

 organised beings, but, curiously enough, the repetition of the features of Central 

 and Northern Europe is much more perfect than one would ever have expected 

 from the great difference in longitude. This is more particularly the case with 

 regard to the fauna ; but the number of European plants is also considerable, 

 and in some localities one is inclined to suppose that two thousand years ago 

 Germany and the Baltic provinces may have borne a very similar look. There 

 is no want of fine scenery, the eastern part of the country especially offers fine 

 views of mountains. Volcanic cones, rivalling in height the Peak of Teneriffe, 

 and surpassing all others in regularity of their conic shape, alternate with long 

 sharp-pointed mountain chains, throughout the year covered with snow, whilst the 

 other parts of the landscape are everywhere decorated with herbage and forest. 

 The western coast districts are mostly swampy moors, but in the interior of the 

 country the steep mountain chains define extensive plains of a doubtless fertile 

 soil, partly covered with forest, partly with herbage, generally with both alter- 

 nately, and through which the principal rivers, Kamtschatka, Awatscha, and Bol- 

 schaja Eeka, wind their way. The sources of all three are close together in the 

 table land and mountains of Granal, whence they diverge in very opposite direc- 

 tions. One of these grassy plains, diversified by groves of birch trees, is repre- 

 sented in our present illustration. It is principally the presence of birches and 

 willows which indicates its belonging to the Awatscha Eiver district. The birch is 

 not Betula alba, so common on the Kamtschatka Kiver, but Betula Ermanni of 



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