In the neighbourhood of North Cape, the wood, for the present, does not go quite to the coast of the Polar Sea, but at sheltered places, situated at a little distance from the beach, birches,[18] three to four metres high, are already to be met with. In former times, however, the outer archipelago itself was covered with trees, which is proved by the tree-stems, found imbedded in the mosses on the outer islands on the coast of Finmark, for instance, upon Renoe. In Siberia the limit of trees runs to the beginning of the estuary delta, _i.e._, to about 72 deg. N.L.[19] As the latitude of North Cape is 71 deg. 10', the wood in Siberia at several places, viz, along the great rivers, goes considerably farther north than in Europe. This depends partly on the large quantity of warm water which these rivers, in summer, carry down from the south, partly on the transport of seeds with the river water, and on the more favourable soil, which consists of a rich mould, yearly renewed by inundations, but in Norway again for the most part of rocks of granite and gneiss or of barren beds of sand. Besides, the limit of trees has a quite dissimilar appearance in Siberia and Scandinavia: in the latter country, the farthest outposts of the forests towards the north consist of scraggy birches, which, notwithstanding their stunted stems, clothe the mountain sides with a very lively and close green; while in Siberia the outermost trees are gnarled and half-withered larches (_Larix daliurica_, Turez), which stick up over the tops of the hills like a thin grey brush.[20] North of this limit there are to be seen on the Yenisej luxuriant bushes of willow and alder. That in Siberia too, the large wood, some hundreds or thousands of years ago, went farther north than now, is shown by colossal tree-stumps found still standing in the _tundra_, nor is it necessary now to go far south of the extreme limit, before the river banks are to be seen crowned with high, flourishing, luxuriant trees. [Illustration: LIMIT OF TREES IN SIBERIA. At Boganida, after Middendorff. ] [Illustration: THE CLOUDBERRY (RUBUS CHAMAEMORUS, L.) Fruit of the natural size. Flowering stalks diminished. ]