144 
BOTANICAL INFORMATION. ~“ 
Note on the recent Voyage of H.M.S. Herald; by Mr. B. SEEMANN. 
[As a possible means of rescuing Sir John Franklin and his brave ` 
panions from the peril ituation in which there is too much reason 
to fear they are placed, it is well known that H.M.S. Herald, Captain 
Kellett, then and still on a surveying voyage in the Pacific, was in- 
structed last year to proceed to Kamtschatka, to procure whatever 
necessary aid that country might afford, and to communicate with 
H.M.S. Plover, in Behring’s Straits, whence the latter was to proceed 
eastward, in the hope of falling in with the party. We have just 
received, from the zealous naturalist of the Herald, the following 
notes of the voyage, which cannot fail to interest our readers.—Ep.] 
The Herald left the Island of Taboga, in the Bay of Panama, on the 
9th of May, 1848, and, having sighted the Sandwich Islands, arrived, 
after a tedious voyage of ninety-two days, at the port of Petropaulowski, 
in Kamtschatka. 
Great was my surprise, when first I beheld the vegetation of Awat- 
scha bay, to find, instead of naked hills and sterile plains, as I had 
anticipated, a luxuriant herbage, reaching as high as to the line of 
perpetual snow of the numerous volcanoes, a brilliant green presented 
itself ; for it was August, the height of summer. Nearly everything 
was in flower, and beautiful it was to see the road-side covered with 
blue Geraniums, Kamtschatka Roses and Lilies, intermixed with Pedi- 
cularis and the white blossoms of Spireas and Actæas. Only two 
kinds of trees are found, viz., Pinus Cembra, and Alnus incana; for 
the Pyrus rosefolia, called by Chamisso a tree, cannot rank as such, aS 
it never grows higher than eight or ten feet. The A/nus is the most 
common. The whole town of Petropaulowski is built of its wood: it 
also furnishes the principal fuel of that place. Of its bark the Kamt- 
schadales manufacture vessels for holding fluids, called here, as over all 
Siberia, Zujes (one of which I transmit for the Museum). Bread made 
of the bark of the same tree is not used at Petropaulowski, but is still 
eaten by the natives of the interior. The few Willows growing in the 
bay are only shrubby. 
