Note 140 — PART III. APPENDIX I. & II. CONTAINING SUPPLEMENTARY ACCOUNTS OF THE RUSSIAN DISCOVERIES, &c. &c.

According to Mr. Pallas, the plants of the new-discovered islands are mostly alpine, like those of Siberia; this he attributes to the shortness and coldness of the summer, occasioned by the frequency of the North winds. His words are: "Quoique les hivres de ces isles soient assez temperés par l'air de la mer, de façon que les neiges ne couvrent jamais la terre que par intervalles, la plupart des plantes y sont alpines, comme en Siberie, par la raison que l'eté y est tout aussi courte et froide, a cause des vents de nord qui y regnent." This passage is taken from a MS treatise in the French language, relative to the new-discovered islands communicated to me by my very learned and ingenious friend Mr. Pallas, professor of natural history at St. Petersburg; from which I have been enabled to collect a considerable degree of information. This treatise was sent to Mons. Buffon; and that celebrated naturalist has made great use of it in the fifth volume of his Supplement à l'Histoire Naturelle.