First Sentence

"IT is no easy task to give even a good general account of the fauna, climate, or scenery of this wide-stretched continent, which extends from shoot 55 to 71 of north latitude, and covers an area of nearly 300,000 English square miles, diversified with every description of landscape, from the low peat sandy plains and open turf mosses of the south, and the dense pine forests of the midland districts, to the barren fells of the north, whose snow-capped summits afford a scanty sustenance to scarcely any other living creature than the reindeer and the ptarmigan."