256 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1883. 



trees of Abies Sitkensis growing on them. One tree must have 

 been about twenty years old, and was half as tall as the pole 

 on which it was growing. The pole may have been twenty feet 

 high. The roots had descended the whole length of the poles, and 

 had gone into the ground, from which the larger trees now derived 

 nourishment. In one case, the root had grown so large as to split 

 the thick pole on one side from the bottom to the top, and this root 

 projected, along the whole length to the ground, about two inches 

 be3^ond the outer circumference of the pole. Only in an atmos- 

 phere surcharged with moisture could a seed sprout on the top of 

 a pole, twenty feet from the ground, and continue for years to 

 grow almost or quite as well as if it were in the ground. 



We may also understand by incidents like these how tree-life 

 endured so very long in this part of Alaska, and why rocky accliv- 

 ities, on which no vegetation at all could exist in the dry climate of 

 the eastern States, were here clothed with a luxuriant fresh growth, 

 so thick that it was almost impossible for one to make a journey 

 through it. Indians had very few trails ; most of their journeys 

 were by canoes. At this village he also saw a bush of Lonivera 

 involacrata^ which was of immense size, as compared with what he 

 had seen in Colorado and other places. This was at the back of 

 an Indian lodge and alongside of a pathway, cut against the 

 hill-side. The plant was growing on the bank and grew up 

 some ten or twelve feet, where it bent over, apparently of its 

 own accord, and rested on the roof of the lodge, its numerous 

 branches making a dense arbor under which the road passed. 

 The stems near the ground were, some of them, as thick as his 

 arm, and the whole plant was covered l\y very large black berries. 

 Stopping in admiration to look at and examine the specimen, 

 brought numbers of Indians to see what was the subject, who 

 smiled pleasantly on being made to understand that only the sight 

 of a huge bush had attracted the traveler. Subsequently another 

 specimen was noted in the woods on a plant of the native hem- 

 lock, Abies Mertenaiana. In the woods the plant is somewhat 

 sarmentaceous. It could not climb a hemlock without assistance. 

 This old hemlock was bereft of branches to about twenty feet 

 high, but the Lonicera was above the lower branches, and had 

 journeyed along them to the extremities, beyond which it was 

 beautifully in fruit. It could only have been there by growing up 

 Tvith the hemlock when that tree was young, and was probably' of 

 about the same age. The Indian village of Kaigan is not properly 

 in Alaska, but just over the border in British Columbia, at the 

 southeastern point of Alaska, but the climatic conditions are 

 about the same. 



The following was ordered to be printed : — 



