[ 4^o ] 
diff herbs. On the contrary, the mountains of Ame- 
rica are firm, and covered, on the furface, not with 
mofs, but with fruitful earth [or mould] ; and there- 
fore, from the foot to the very top [of them], they 
are decked with thick and very fine trees. At the 
foot of them grow herbs proper to dry places, and 
not to marfhy ones ; befides that, for the mod: part, 
thofe [plants] are of the fame largenefs and appear- 
ance, both on the lower grounds, and on the very tops 
of the mountains; by reafon, that there is every-where 
the fame inward heat and moidure. But in Ada, 
there is fo great a difference between them, that, of 
one kind of plants growing [there], one would [be 
apt to] make leveral kinds, if one did not obferve 
a rule, which holds generally, with regard to thofe 
places \yizJ\i that in lower grounds herbs grow twice 
as large as thofe on the mountains. 
In America, even the fea-diores, at 6o° latitude, 
are woody; but in Kamtchatka, at 5 1 ° latitude, no 
place fet with fmall willows and alder-trees is found 
nearer than 20 verdes from the fea: plantations [or 
woods] of birch- trees, are, for the mod part, at [the 
didance of] 30 verdes; and, with regard to pitch- 
trees, on the river Kamtchatka, they are at the di- 
dance of fo verdes, or more, from its mouth. At 
62°, there is no wood at Kamtchatka. 
In Steller’s opinion, from the afore-mentioned la- 
titude of America, the land extends as far as 70°, 
and farther; and the chief caufe of the above-faid 
growth of woods in that country is the cover and 
fhelter it has from the wed. On the other hand, 
the want of this [of wood) on the Kamtchadalian 
fhores, efpecially on the fhore of the Penfhinian lea, 
5 doubt- 
