42 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 
fathoms one can often gather a couple of quarts. There is no 
wood here—'Only hushes. 
In the neighbourhood of North Cape, the wood, for the 
present, does not go quite to the coast of the Polar Sea, but at 
sheltered places, situated at a little distance from the beach, 
birches,^ three to four metres high, are already to be met with. 
In former times, however, the outer archipelago itself was 
LIMIT OF TKLLS IN NORWAY. 
At Praestevaiidet, on Troinsoen, after a photograph. 
covered with trees, which is proved by the tree-stems, found 
imbedded in the mosses on the outer islands on the coast of 
^ The birch which grows here is the sweet-scented birch (Betula 
odorata, Bechst.), not the dwarf birch {Betula nama, L.), which is found 
as far north as Ice Fjord in Spitzbergen (78^ 7' N. L.), though there it 
only rises a few inches above ground. 
