354 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. x. 



and frozen, but still clear of snow, so that our botanists could 

 form an idea of the flora of the region, previously quite unknown. 

 Next the shore were found close beds of Elymus, alternating 

 with carpets of Halianthus peploidcs, and further up a poor, even, 

 gravelly soil, covered with water in spring, on which grew only 

 a slate-like lichen, Gyrophora prohoscidea, and a few flowering 

 plants, of which Armeria sihirica was the most common. 

 Within the beach were extensive salt and fresh-Avater lagoons, 

 separated by low land, whose banks were covered with a pretty 

 luxuriant carpet, formed of mosses, grasses, and Carices, But 

 first on the neighbouring high land, where the weathered gneiss 

 strata yielded a more fertile soil than the sterile sand thrown 

 up out of the sea, did the vegetation assume a more variegated 

 stamp. No trace of trees ^ was indeed found there, but low 

 willow bushes, extensive carpets of Emptetruin nigrum and 

 Andromeda tctragona were seen, along with large tufts of a 

 species of Artemisia. Between these shoot forth in summer, to 

 judge partly from the dried and frozen remains of plants which 

 Dr. Kjellman collected in autumn, partly from collections made 

 in spring, a limited number of flowering plants, some of which 

 are well known at home, as the red whortleberry, the cloud- 

 berry, and the dandelion. 



Although experience from preceding Polar journeys and 

 specially from the Swedish expedition of 1872-73, showed that 

 even at the 80th degree of latitude the sea may suddenly break 

 up in the middle of winter, we however soon found, as has 

 been already stated, that we must make preparations for 

 wintering. The necessary arrangements were accordingly made. 

 The snow which collected on deck, and which at first was daily 

 swept away, was allowed to remain, so that it finally formed a 

 layer 30 centimetres thick, of hard tramped snow or ice, which 

 in no inconsiderable degree contributed to increase the resistance 

 of the deck to cold, and for the same purpose snowdrifts were 

 thrown up along the vessel's sides. A stately ice stair was 

 carried up from the ice to the starboard gunwale. A large tent 

 made for the purpose at Karlskrona was pitched from the bridge 

 to the fore, so that only the poop was open. Aft the tent was 

 quite open, the blast and drifting snow having also free entrance 

 from the sides and from an incompletely closed opening in the 

 fore. The protection it yielded against the cold was indeed 

 greatly diminished in this way, but instead it did not have the 

 least injurious action on the air on the vessel, a circumstance 

 specially deserving of attention for its influence on the state of 

 health on board. Often under this tent in the dark days of 

 winter there blazed a brisk smithy fire, round which the 



^ Low brush is probably to be met with in the interior of the Chukch 

 peninsula at places which are protected from the cold north winds. 



