26G ANNUAL REPORT 



benas, and other beauties that I loved; and I could weep, but that I 

 know the spring will come by and by, the snow will melt, the sun 

 will warm the earth, and my garden will bloom again in fragrant 

 beauty. Rejoicing in this hope, there comes to me the thought, 

 " How do people exist in the Arctic regions, with snow and ice and 

 cold always about them '? Are their hearts over warmed and glad- 

 dened by the sight of flowers of any kind?" 



Our ideas of the inhabitants of the Frigid zone were very vague, 

 and we knew very little of their mode of living, their pursuits, etc., 

 until modern travelers and scientists visited these regions and enlight- 

 ened us in regard to them. Some have given glowing accounts of the 

 peculiar beauties of those cold countries, and have awakened a strong 

 desire in the minds of many to visit them. Standing in the art gal- 

 lery at the Exposition, last August, before one of Mr. Bradford's in- 

 imitable pictures, more than one enthusiast might have been induced to 

 enlist for an expedition to the North Pole, but the month of January 

 in Minnesota is not a favorable time or place to obtain recruits for 

 such an adventure. 



Frederick Schwatka, the explorer, has given as the result of his 

 Arctic voyages, some verj'' interesting accounts of the flora of the ex- 

 treme north. He says: " The Arctic waters, full of floating ice the 

 year round, make the shores comparatively devoid of vegetation, ex- 

 cept a stunted water sedge that is as hardy as the Canada thistle, and 

 perchance a few straggling polar blossoms peeping through the moss, 

 that seem strangely incongruous in the icy surroundings of general 

 desolation, but, inland, the never setting sun, though seldom high 

 above the horizon, can constantly av^curaulate its heat unobstructed 

 by any loss at night, until it produces a vegetation in the little val- 

 leys that seems almost tropical when compared with the desolation 

 that greets the eye in every other direction." 



One of the most interesting considerations of Arctic flora is its ori- 

 gin, as given to us by that great pre-historic printing press, the fussil 

 strata of the earth, and especially the revelations of what is called 

 the nival flora of the non -frigid zones, or that which is J"ound at high 

 or Alpine altitudes, among climates similar to the polar region. Dur- 

 ing one of the geological periods, and not so very far back in the 

 world's history either, a great sheet of thick ice crept down from the 

 base of the north pole, and extended in many places half way across the 

 temperate zone. Arctic weather prevailed to the tropics, and all the sur- 

 roundings were in accord, even the plant life being only of that 

 hardy, stunted kind that would resist such intense cold. But after a 



