But even in northern latitudes the American coast is not without vegetation. Grass takes the place of trees. At Fort Yukon, in latitude 67°, there is “a thin, wiry grass.” Navigators notice the contrast between the opposite coasts of the two continents. Kotzebue, while in Behring Strait, where the two approach each other, was struck by black, mossy rocks frowning with snow and icicles on the Asiatic side, while on the American side “even the summits of the highest mountains were free from snow,” and “the coast was covered with a green carpet.”[112] But the contrast with the Atlantic coast of the continent is hardly less. The northern limit of trees is full seven degrees higher in Russian America than in Labrador. In point of fact, on the Atlantic coast, in latitude 57° 58´, which is nearly that of Sitka, there are no trees. All this is most suggestive. Next after trees, early navigators speak oftenest of berries, which they found in profusion. Not a sailor lands who does not find them. Cook reports “a variety of berries” at Norton Sound, and “great quantities” at Oonalaska.[113] Portlock finds at Prince William Sound “fruit-bushes in great abundance, such as bilberry-bushes, raspberry-bushes, strawberries, elder-berry-bushes, and currant-bushes, red and black,” and “any quantity of the berries might be gathered for a winter’s stock.”[114] Meares saw there “a few black-currant-bushes.”[115] Billings finds at Kadiak “several species of berries, with currants and raspberries in abundance, the latter white, but extremely large, being bigger than any mulberry he had ever seen.”[116] Langsdorff notes most of these at Oonalaska, with cranberries and whortleberries besides.[117] Belcher reports at Garden Island “strawberries, whortleberries, blaeberries, pigeon-berries, and a small cranberry, in tolerable profusion, without going in search of them.”[118] These I quote precisely, and in the order of time.