8 H. G. SIMMONS. [sec. ARCT. EXP. FRAM 



Thus I think EUesmereland may be looked upon as being the best 

 explored of all the Arctic American Islands; but yet large parts of it 

 form, from a botanical point of view at least, an entire terra incognita, 

 and as I could sometimes find a new EUesmereland citizen in places 

 which I was inclined to regard as well explored, and as several species 

 are only found in an isolated locality, I think many further additions 

 will be made when another botanist comes to visit the land. The best 

 known districts now are the neighbourhood of Discovery Harbour in 

 Lady Franklin Bay, the outer part of Hayes Sound (Buchanan Strait), 

 the environs of Fram Harbour, and in the south coast Fram Fjord, Har- 

 bour Fjord and Goose Fjord. The east coast south of Cape Isabella, 

 the eastern part of the south coast and the greater parts of the western 

 and northern coasts are almost totally unknown. 



A fist of all points whence collections or notes of species exist, is 

 inserted on p. 16, where also the approximate position of each locality 

 is given. 



The reader will perhaps be astonished not to find any notes about 

 the height above the sea-level to which the different species attain. At 

 first I began making notes about it, but soon I came to the conclusion 

 that it was of no interest. The height is of very little consequence, 

 perhaps of none at all, in these regions. Indeed the higher plants were 

 most abundant in the low-lying grounds or, rather in the slopes at the 

 foot of the mountains, but their diminishing number and more stunted 

 growth, such as could be observed in many places when one went up 

 the mountain sides, was not due to the higher level, but to the decrea- 

 sing depth of loose soil and often to the lesser w^ater-supply. Where 

 there was enough soil, and where some water trickled down even 

 during the summer, after the melting of the main mass of winter-snow 

 was over, there also vegetation w^ould be found, which was not inferior 

 to that of lower levels. Indeed, the richest vegetation, both as to density, 

 development of the plants and numbers of species, was always found 

 in slopes some hundred feet above the sea-level. Even at heights of a 

 thousand feet or more, there would be a flourishing vegetation, if only 

 the other conditions were favorable. In few places have I seen such 

 tall grasses as in the plateau of the peninsula between the Goose P'jord 

 and the Walrus Fjord, at a height of more than 1000 feet, and often, 

 when after climbing a steep slope of some hundred or a thousand feet 

 which was very bare except for mosses and lichens, one arrived at a 

 ledge or plateau, one would find a vegetation which was not any poorer 

 than that near the sea. In fact two circumstances are decisive, the 



