Thus bounded on the south, the Arctic lands of America, including the groups of islands lying to the north and north-east, cannot occupy less than 560,000 square leagues. They exceed, therefore, the superficial area of the European lands, estimated at about 490,000 square leagues.
We propose to divide these lands into two zones or regions, the wooded and the desert zones: the former, in America, includes the basins of the Upper Mackenzie, the Churchill, the Nelson, and the Severn.
In the wooded zone the thermometer does not rise above zero until the month of May. Then, under the influence of a more genial temperature, the breath of life passes into the slumbering, inert vegetation. Then the reddish shoots of the willows, the poplars, and the birches hang out their long cottony catkins; a pleasant greenness spreads over copse and thicket; the dandelion, the burdock, and the saxifrages lift their heads in the shelter of the rocks; the sweet-brier fills the air with fragrance, and the gooseberry and the strawberry are put forth by a kindly nature; while the valleys bloom and the hill-sides are glad with the beauty of the thuja, the larch, and the pine.
The boundary between the wooded zone and the barren would be shown by a line drawn from the mouth of the Churchill in Hudson Bay to Mount St. Elias on the Pacific coast, traversing the southern shores of the Bear and the Slave Lakes. To the north, this barren zone touches on eternal snow, and includes the ice-bound coasts of the Parry Archipelago; to the east and the north-east, identity of climate and uniform character of soil bring within it the greatest part of Labrador and all Greenland.
In Asia the isothermal line of O° descends towards the 55th parallel of latitude, one lower than in America,—though to the north of it some important towns are situated, as Tobolsk, lat. 58° 11’; Irkutsk, lat, 58° 16’; and Yakutsk, lat. 62°.
In Continental Europe, the only Arctic lands properly so called, and distinguished by an Arctic flora, are Russian Lapland and the deeply-indented coast of Northern Russia. Far away to the north, and separated from the continent by a narrow arm of the sea, lie the three almost contiguous islands known as Novaia Zemlaia (lat. 68° 50’ to 76° N.). And still further north, almost equidistant from the Old World and the New, lies the gloomy mountainous archipelago of Spitzbergen (lat. 77° to 81°, and long. 10° to 24°).
We have now only to recapitulate the general characters of the Arctic flora, as they would present themselves to a traveller advancing from the wooded zone into the desert, and thence to the borders of the Polar Sea.
On the southern margin of the wooded region, as in Sweden, Russia, and Siberia, extend immense forests, chiefly of coniferous trees. As we move towards the north these forests dwindle into scattered woods and isolated coppices, composed chiefly of stunted poplars and dwarf birches and willows. The sub-alpine myrtle, and a small creeping honeysuckle with rounded leaves, are met with in favourable situations. Continuing our northerly progress, we wholly leave behind the arborescent species; but the rocks and cliffs are bright with plants belonging to the families of the ranunculaceæ, saxifragaceæ, cruciferæ, and gramineæ. To the dwarf firs and pigmy willows succeed a few scattered shrubs—such as the gooseberry, the strawberry, the raspberry, pseudo-mulberry (Rubus chamæmorus)—indigenous to this region, and the Lapland oleander (Rhododendron laponicum).
Still advancing northward, we find, at the extreme limits of the mainland, some drabas (Cruciferæ), potentillas (Rosaceæ), burweeds and rushes (Cyperaceæ), and lastly a great abundance of mosses and lichens. The commonest mosses are the Splechnum, which resembles small umbels; and, in moist places, the Sphagnum, or bog-moss, whose successive accumulations, from a remote epoch, have formed, with the detritus of the Cyperaceæ, extensive areas of peat, which at a future day will perhaps be utilized for fuel.