Forest Leaves Volume 16 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 Excerpt: ...the British possessions from the ocean, is a northward extension of the Pacific coast forest. Here the evenly tempered climate gives rise to forest-covered slopes, of which only the higher elevations with their covering of eternal snow, reach above timber-line. Separated from this coast by the high sierras of the St. Elias and Fairweather coast ranges and by ranges farther inland to the north and west, is the great interior basin, drained by the Yukon River, with its hills, mountains and plateaus, which, while in the main an open country, is studded with more or less frequent spots of forest growth, varying in density and development. The forest flora of this interior region is entirely different from that of the coast, being essentially the same as our northeastern Atlantic boreal flora. Intervening between the Pacific and Atlantic forest flora is a high triangular-shaped plateau, some 15,000 square miles in extent, a region of absolute solitude, covered with snow and ice all the year around, without a single vestige of life. Skirting the coast of Behring Sea from Kuskokwim Bay northward and along the Arctic Ocean, is the " tundra," a belt of treeless country, though not entirely devoid of woody vegetation, varying from one hundred miles and less to several hundred miles in width. Lastly a different type is recognized in the forestless region of grassy slopes and snow-covered peaks which the Alaska peninsula and the Aleutian islands and others exhibit west of the 150 of longitude.. It is easily understood that the mechanical barrier which the ice-and snow-bound mountain ranges interpose should effectively separate the Pacific and Atlantic forest flora. But to the westward no such barrier exists, hence the differing flora must be accounted for acc...