187 
Heracleum lanatum, Michx. 
Veratrum viride, Ait. 
Streptopus roseus, Michx. 
Fourth, those cosmopolitans of the Arctic circle or alpine 
plants which find a home in Greenland, Arctic America, Europe 
and Asia: 
Pedicularis Langsdorffit, Fisch. 
Ranunculus pygmaeus, Wahl. 
This classification marks, perhaps, degrees of vigor in with- 
standing climatic influences, the last group being the hardiest in 
constitution, the first being most affected by disturbing influences, 
and so occupying only the narrow belt which was most condu- 
cive to their well-being. I like to think of Alaska as being near 
_the home land of the present earth’s flora, within that circle of dis- 
tribution around the pole, whose radius met the circumference in 
Greenland on the one hand and Europe on the other; when, in 
the tertiary period, the temperate floras stood together north of 
the Arctic circle. 
The mind surveys the change that drove before the advanc- 
ing glaciers the present Arctic plants down to the latitude of the 
Ohio, and sees again the return of the exiles north toward their 
trysting-place, until we find the best travelers close up to the 
Arctic circle, uniform or nearly so around the pole, while lower 
down the weaker brethren remain in widely different belts, or 
perhaps are slowly traveling still, though far in the rear. In the 
first group we find distinctively western forms of not so close re- 
lationship to those of Asia as are the eastern American, due 
Probably to the fact of the great elevation and longer glaciation 
of the west coast. 
Here in Alaska we have mountains which seem not to have 
been free of ice since the glacial period; so here we appear to 
stand on the borders of the retiring ice age, and survey from this 
vantage ground the present world-flora and the mysteries of its 
Past history, 
Scores of questions which sought to penetrate that mysterious 
Past crowded the mind on that wonderful day when we invaded 
the ice-fields themselves and steamed fearlessly up Glacier Bay 
among the threatening icebergs, and anchored under the mile- 
