185 
more Cottonwoods and Vzburnums in the cafon than I found 
elsewhere, and the mosses and lichens would have repaid several 
days of botanizing. 
In looking over the records I find that the Alaska botanizing 
has been chiefly done at Sitka and Unalaschka, a few collections 
having been made on the Yukon. There is much rich material 
awaiting the systematic collector, and the wholly unexplored east- 
ern slope of the Cascades will surely bring new species to light. 
Macoun, in his “‘ Catalogue of Canadian Plants,” has indicated 
the results of the earlier and later botanists, and a glance at that 
list will show how much ground has yet to be explored. 
Chilcat, at the entrance to the pass to the Yukon, is a level 
stretch between two mountain ridges lying at the northern ex- 
tremity of the coast, where the turn westward is made. It must 
be rich in flowering plants, and the configuration of the land 
must make it a particularly interesting field for the botanist. 
A stop of thirty-six hours tempted us to remain for further 
exploration, but that was impossible. However, we visited an 
almost unexplored glacier (the Davidson), doing what no tourists 
had ever done before us, we were told. The glacier is a large 
one, but is slowly dying, the foot of it, which once pushed out 
into the sea, being now fronted by a terminal moraine from one 
to three miles broad. This is densely covered with vegetation, 
and would well repay a botanist’s study. ; 
Problems which confront a botanist in visiting a region new 
to him relate to the history of the flora spread out before him, 
its relation to the floras with which he is familiar, and the causes 
of difference. These questions find answer in the climatic influ- 
ences of the present and those which have operated in the past, 
with, as well, the geologic history of the region, including great 
Catastrophes, such as mountain building, subsidence or changes 
in climate due to ocean currents, or those vaster ones which pro- 
duced a glacial period. : 
At present the climate of the southeastern coast of Alaska is 
mild and moist, being like that of Oregon and Washington, modi- 
fied by the higher latitude, which brings with it long winters, 
when the moisture in the air, always abundant, falls in snow in- 
stead of rain, as farther south. These immense snow-fields, being 
