BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 151 
or one degree lower than at the station, only sixty feet below, no doubt 
caused by the greater exposure of the summit. The air was a good 
deal (6? or 7?) warmer, owing, apparently, to the sun heating the 
dense mist which surrounded us, but which is cooled by contact with 
the trees, a little below the summit. A series of barometrical observa- 
tions, compared with synchronous ones taken at Calcutta, gave the 
elevation of the top 10,078 feet. The measured height of Tonglo, by 
Colonel Waugh’s grand trigonometrical operations, is 10,079 feet. 
The number of Lichens, Hepatice, Mosses, and Hymenophylla, 
growing at the top, is very great ; and I found Sphagnum in abundance, 
Which is rare in Sikkim, and almost confined to moist rocks, owing 
to the want of any exposed marsh at lower elevations. Some other 
Ferns, also, were common, and a few Agarici on the twigs. The 
Lichens especially infested the Rose, Barberry, and a small Cherry, 
called kumpee, which was very abundant. The Bamboo (Phieung) has 
always clean stems, and so are the Rhododendron trunks, for the most 
part, owing to their papery bark. 
(To be continued.) 
BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
Letter from Mr. BERTHOLD SEEMANN, Naturalist of H.B.M. Survey- 
ing-Ship HERALD, addressed to Sir W. J. Hooker, after the return of 
the Herald from the second voyage in search of Sir John Franklin, by 
the way of Behring’s Straits, and dated Mazatlan, Mexico, Nov. 13, 
1849. 
We quitted the harbour of Honolulu (Sandwich Islands) on the 19th 
of May, 1849, again directing our course towards the north, in order 
to renew the search for the expedition under the command of Sir John 
Franklin. Expecting to obtain some information respecting H.M.S. 
Plover, we entered the Port of Petropaulowski, Kamtschatka, where 
we met the Nancy Dawson, a schooner equipped by a private gentle- 
man, Robert Shedden, Esq., for the express purpose of discovering 
some traces of the Arctic voyagers. As nothing had been heard of the 
Plover, we remained only one day, which I devoted to collecting. The 
winter in Kamtschatka had been uncommonly severe, the thermometer 
