FOUND BY THE ARCTIC VOYAGERS. 39 
in the Report, whose date is pretty well ascertained. It appears to me 
quite clear that this was a piece of drift-wood bleached before it was 
exposed to the fire. It precisely resembles drift-wood from Fort Con- 
fidence, and has suffered very little change since it was burnt, most 
probably in 1845 or 1846. And, what is very curious, I find upon it 
certain traces of precisely the same Fungus which exists in considerable 
quantity on the Fort Confidence wood. On a microscopic examination 
of the bleached surface I detected a few deeply seated minute black 
specks, which exhibit, though in most minute quantities, undoubtedly 
the same Sporidesmium as exists on the drift-wood. The species is so 
near to the common Zepraria nigra, which must be referred to the genus 
Sporidesmium as at present constituted, that I scarcely think it dis- 
tinct, the only difference consisting in the constituent cells of the spores 
being more opake and slightly smaller. Sporidesmium Lepraria is one 
of those Fungi which last for years on the same matrix, and which 
leave traces for a long time, even when the surrounding tissues are 
worn away, and I have frequently seen on old wood our English form 
of the species, precisely in the same state in which the Arctic form 
exists on the drift-wood. I do not think therefore that the specks 
have been formed since 1845—46, but that they are the remains of the 
species which existed on the drift-wood when used for fuel by some 
members of Sir John Franklin's expedition, exactly as it now appears 
on the drift-wood from Fort Confidence. In closing these remarks it 
is no little satisfaction to me to find these minute objects bear unex- 
pectedly on a subject of such interest and importance, as it is one 
amongst many other proofs that the meanest natural productions are, 
even on the cui dono principle, not unworthy of close investigation. 
It remains only to give the characters of the species which have 
come under investigation, which might have been multiplied to a great 
extent had more time and better opportunity offered. The object 
however is simply to show the real nature of the bodies which appear 
on the Arctic wood, without any view to mere botanical specification. 
There is not the slightest pretence that any of the productions which 
I am about to describe belong to Lichens even of the lowest type. 
on Beechey Island S a kind of rake, employed probably to drag seaweed on shore. The 
shaft is of fir, and is not bleached except a part near its head, where from friction 
against the stones the constituent fibres were disentangled. (Sir J. Richardson, in 
litt.) ^r iint ts —' ! M E 
