14 
be seen in places having nothing in common with the glaciers - 
of our own country. The Esquimaux, being unable to break 
the ground for the purpose of interring their dead in mother 
earth, lay the bodies flat on the ground, piling drift-wood above 
them, and placing blocks of stone on the top, to protect them 
from beasts of prey. The Tschuktschi, on the coast of Asia, 
burn their dead. 
* If we collect, examine, and compare the accounts of the 
northern line of coast in Asia and America, the descriptions 
of these arctic regions will be found to agree, in all essential 
particulars, with what we have ourselves witnessed at Behring's 
Straits. The ground is everywhere frozen, and beneath the 
scanty verdure which sometimes clothes the soil, the ice is 
frequently as hard as a rock." * 
** In the belief that a description of a spot which is remark- — 
able for its botanical productions will prove more interesting — 
to you than a whole sheetful of promises and assurances of 
regard, I proceed to conduct you, without farther preface, to 
Norfolk Sound, a place which is rich in every kind of natural 
beauty; and I beg leave to accompany you in an excursion 
from the sea-coast to the summit of the Werstovoi. By this 
means I hope to succeed in giving you a general idea of the 
vegetation of the environs of New Archangel. As it was 
quite low tide when we landed, we were obliged to walk for 
some distance over the stony spots which, at high water, are 
covered by the sea. A particular state of Fucus vesiculosus 
covers the sharp stones with an olive-green, moss-like cover- 
ing; and by its slipperiness renders walking unpleasant: the 
singular F. saecatus was also seen here and there, while F. 
ulvoides and F. punctatus appeared in plenty, like red lobes 
* At the mouth of the Lena and Mackenzie Rivers, what may be reckoned 
as the tertiary formation contains Mammalia of the antedilavian world. In 
confirmation of this fact, we here only allude to Gmelin (Fi. Sib. Pref.), Adams, 
Wrangel, Mackenzie, Franklin, Georgi (Beschreib. des Russ. Reiches 9. 1. B. 
P. 20.), though more authorities might be quoted. 
