MIDDENDORFF'S ADVENTURES IN TAIMURLAND. 



225 



" I now heard that my companions had fortunately reached the Samoiedes 

 four days after our separation ; but the dreadful snow-storms had pr(jvented the 

 nomads from coming sooner to my assistance, and had even forced them twice 

 to retrace their steps. • 



" On September 30 the Samoiedes brought me to my tent, and on October 

 9 we bade the Taimur an eternal farewell. After five months we hailed with 

 delight, on October 20, the verge of the forest, and on the following day we 

 reached the smoky hut on the Boganida, where we had left our friends." 



Having thus accompanied Middendorff on his adventurous wanderings 

 through Taimuria, I will now give a brief account of his observations on the 

 climate and natural productions of this northern land. 



The remark of Saussure that the difference of temperature between light and 

 shade is greatest in summer, and in the high latitudes, was fully confirmed by 

 Middendorff. While the thermometer marked —37° in the shad^, the hillsides 

 exposed to the sun were dripping with wet, and towards the end of June, though 

 the mean temperature of the air was still below the freezing-point of water, the 

 snow had already entirely disappeared on the sunny side of the Taimur River. 

 Torrents came brawling down the hills ; the swollen rivers rose forty or sixty 

 feet above their winter level, and carried their icy covering along with them to 

 the sea. 



On August 3, in the very middle of the short Taimurian summer, in 74° 15' 

 of latitude, Middendorff hunted butterflies under the shelter of a hill, bare-foot- 

 ed and in light under-clothes. The thermometer rose in the sun to -|-68°, and 

 close to the ground to -f 86°, while at a short distance on a spot exposed to the 

 north-eastern air-current it fell at once to -f-27°. 



The moisture of the air was very remarkable. In May thick snow-fogs al- 

 most perpetually obscured the atmosphere, so that it was impossible to ascer- 

 tain the position of the sun. It appeared only in the evening, or about midnight, 

 and then regularly a perpendicular column of luminous whiteness descended from 

 its orb to the earth, and, widening as it approached the horizon, took the form 

 and the appearance of a colossal lamp-flame, such as the latter appears when 

 seen through the mists of a vapor bath. From the same cause parhelia and 

 halos were very frequent. 



During the daytime the snow-fogs, in perpetual motion, either entirely veil- 

 ed the nearest objects, or magnified their size, or exhibited them in a dancing 

 motion. In June the snow-fog became a vapor-fog, which daily from time to 

 time precipitated its surplus of moisture in form of a light rain, but even then 

 the nights, particularly after eleven o'clock, were mostly serene. 



Experience proved, contrary to Arago's opinion, that thunder-storms take 

 place within the Arctic zone. The perpetual motion of the air was very re- 

 markable. The sun had merely to disappear behind a cloud to produce at once 

 a gust of wind. Towards the end of August, the southern and the northern air- 

 currents, like two contending giants, began to strive for the mastery, until finally 

 the storms raged with extreme violence. But in these treeless deserts their fury 

 ^inds nothing to destroy. 



It is impossible to form any thing like a correct estimate of the quantity of 



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