A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton.

  • Barton, John, 1789-1852.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Jan tic to the inhabitants of Iceland and of Nor- way, while it brings the dry and cold atmos- phere of Siberia to the inhabitants of Kam- chatka and Corea Norway and Lapland enjoy a more temperate climate than any other country in the same latitude. The Scotch Fir there attains to a height of sixty feet in latitude 70°; and at Torn-ea, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, in latitude 66°, the Birches are described by Von Buch as “ magnificent.” For this superiority of climate, these countries are probably indebted to their peculiar position between four seas, the Atlantic, the Arctic Ocean, the White Sea, and the Gulf of Bothnia. A very curious dif- ference has, however, been observed between the climate of Lapland, lying to the north of the Gulf of Bothnia, and that of Norway, which skirts the shore of the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. These two countries are separated by a chain of mountains of considerable eleva- tion, which fall abruptly and precipitously to- wards the sea on their northern and western * Wahlenberg: Flora Lapponica, xiv. This theory is not, I think, quite satisfactory; or, at least, not quite adequate to explain the facts observed. The proportion of westerly to easterly winds at London, is as 225 to 140,— Howard, on the Climate of London, vol. ii. p. 157. B 5