Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/248

220 of Sandwich Islands, they first observed the albatross. Captain King, on his passage to Kamtschatka, first met these birds within twenty miles of the same spot. In the same latitudes, the species of flying fish was changed. In 33° N. the first birds of the northern regions were met with. These were the Procellaria puffinus. The tropical birds accompanied them as far as 36° N. In 35° N. the sea became covered with beroes, nereis, and other molluscous animals, and small crustacea. Captain Beechey says that the vicinity of the St. Lawrence Islands, in Beering's Straits, is always indicated by the crested auk (Alca crestatella). The dredge off this island furnished specimens of genera which exist in great abundance on our coasts. The same remark is applicable to the vegetation of the shores of Beering's Straits and Kotzebue's Sound, and this is nowhere more remarkable than in Cape Espenberg.

We notice these few facts, furnished by Captain Beechey's voyage, not to prove that the respective position of any place on the globe has any exact and positive relation with its aquatic or terrestrial productions. But although these do not atop at such or such an arch of the sphere, and we cannot perhaps quote a single animal or vegetable which first makes its appearance at such or such a degree of latitude or longitude; yet all natural productions have their zones more or less large and sinuous; and with the progress of science, we shall find the manner in which the principal marine and littoral productions are distributed over the immensity of the waters will enable us to obtain grounds for the most natural divisions of their surface.

The altitudes obtained by barometrical or trigonometrical observations attach themselves peculiarly to physical geography, as illustrating the height of continents, of mountain chains, and of culminating points, which, however, are more often objects of curiosity than of scientific interest. The barometrical measurements were computed according to Mr. Daniell's method; and the heights ascertained at sea were with sextants, patent log-bases, and astronomical bearings.