ntroductory. For some years, I had intended to investigate 
I the plant-life of Hare Island. The situation of the island, the 
fact of its being fairly widely separated from the coast of the con- 
tinent of West Greenland as well as from the larger island, Disco, 
its being uninhabited and seldom visited, its free exposure to all 
winds and (as has been told me) its being a station for migratory 
birds on their way up and down Baffin Bay — all these facts justify 
our expectations of finding features in its flora leading to some 
knowledge of the wandering power of arctic plants. Having worked 
at the MS for a flora of Disco, I was especially anxious to see 
whether Hare Island also possessed Southern Types like those 
that characterize so markedly the flora of the southern parts of 
Disco. 
On account of various circumstances, I could not visit the 
island until the summer of 1909. I then used a motor-launch with 
a crew of Greenlanders, but owing to continuous fog, rough weather 
and the total lack of reliable boat-harbours, I could not make exten- 
sive excursions into the interior of the island, as none of the crew 
was able to manage the engine of the launch. Therefore during 
the 224 and 23rd of August, I could only make a dozen small excur- 
sions, beginning on the south coast, and proceeding westward and 
northward and ending at the small islet at Niaqua. 
Former Visits. Hare Island (as already mentioned) is un- 
inhabited, and has been so during the time of the Danish coloniza- 
tion. There are only a few ruins of Eskimo houses and graves, and 
they are all very old. Formerly the inhabitants of Nugsuaq made 
regular trips to Hare Island to collect coal (at Aumarutigsat) or 
drift-wood (at Umivik, “the place where boats are built”), but 
nowadays they have ceased, coals having been found nearer to the 
dwellings, but more especially on account of the roughness of the 
sea. Formerly also the British whalers used to coal there, and on 
the north coast. seamen’s graves are still to be seen. 
At different times, the island has been investigated by geologists 
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