BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 157 
and many places are full of shoals. The country is flat, much inter- 
sected by lagoons, and but thinly covered with low bushes of Beech 
and Willow. Ata distance, towards west and south, high mountains 
are discernible. During the course of the day we passed several islets, 
and halted late in the afternoon at a low spit, where I obtained San- 
guisorba Canadensis, Rosa cinnamomea, Galium rubioides, Allium Sibi- 
ricum, Lithospermum denticulatum, &c., &c., all more or less injured by 
frost. During the night the sky was illuminated by an aurora bore- 
alis, the most remarkable I had ever seen. It extended from the 
constellation of the Great Bear to that of the Pleiades, throwing out 
rays, which seemed to move like a flame when affected by a strong 
breeze. 
Early in the morning of the 11th of September, we proceeded, but 
at noon were stopped by a waterfall, over which it was impossible to 
carry the larger boats. At this place we came to an extensive Esqui- 
maux village nearly deserted, the inhabitants, with the exception of 
three, having gone to the coast to catch fish. All the dwellings were 
underground. I crept into several, and found in one of them an old 
branch of the White Spruce, 4éies alba. As at every turn of the river 
I had expected to obtain a glance of some Conifer, but always been 
disappointed, I was quite delighted with this fragment, as a sure indi- 
cation that the tree itself could not be far distant. The village was 
surrounded by groves of willow, Salix speciosa, Hook. et Arn., deserv- 
ing here, for the first time, the name of ¢rees. Though their stems 
were from eighteen to twenty feet high, by five inches in diameter, yet 
no sign of flower or fructification could be detected, which leads 
to the belief that this species, the most robust of all known willows, 
attains towards the south a great size. I have never found it with 
catkins. In habit it somewhat resembles the Salix Lapponica, Linn. 
Among the other plants gathered here were Lupinus perennis, Poten- 
tilla fruticosa, and Marchantia polymorpha, none of which I had pre- 
viously seen. The Buckland, up to this point (lat. 65° 59’ N., long. 
161° 7’) takes a southern, and from thence an eastern, direction. 
While a small party, under the direction of Commander Moore 
and Lieutenant R. Macguire, proceeded to trace the river to its 
source, Captain Kellett and I returned, regaining the ship on the 
evening of the 15th of September. The party went five days farther 
than we did, till the water became too shallow for boat-navigation. 
