258 



THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 



[CIIAP. 



rolled its bluish-white ice-masses down the mountain sides, and 

 no inland lakes, no perpendicular cliffs, no high mountain 

 summits, gave any natural beauty to the landscape, which was 

 the most monotonous and the most desolate I have seen in the 

 High North. 



As on the island off which we lay at anchor on the 11th 

 August, the ground was everywhere burst asunder into more or 

 less regular six-sided figures, the interior of which was usually 

 bare of vegetation, while stunted flowering-plants, lichens and 



VIEW AT CAPE CHELYUSKIN DURING THE STAY OF THE EXPEDITION. 



(After a drawing by A. Hovgaard.) 



mosses, rose out of the cracks. At some few places, however, 

 the ground was covered with a carpet of mosses, lichens, grasses 

 and allied plants, resembling that which I previously found at 

 Actinia Bay. Yet the flowering-plants were less numerous here, 

 and the mosses more stunted and bearing fruit less abundantly. 

 The lichen flora was also, according to Dr. Almquist's examina- 

 tion, monotonous, though very luxuriant. The plants were 

 most abundant on the farthest extremity of the Cape. It 

 almost appeared as if many of the plants of the Taimur country 

 had attempted to migrate hence farther to the north, but meet- 

 ing the sea, had stood still, unable to go farther and unwilling 



