166 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. LXiii. 



First Eecord Of Plants from Hope Island, Barentz 

 Sea. Collected by W. S. Bruce, F.R.S.G.S. Communi- 

 cated by Pi. TuRXBULL, B.Sc. 



(Head 9th February 1899.) 



Mr. Bruce 's first experience of Polar work was on board 

 the " Balaena," which visited the Antarctic seas on a sealing 

 expedition in 1892-93. He afterwards acted as zoologist 

 to the Jackson-Harmsworth Polar Expedition to Franz- 

 Josef Land in 1896—97; went as naturalist on board 

 j\lr. Coats's yacht, " Blencathra," during the summer of 

 1898, to Kolguev Island, Xovaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen ; 

 and at the end of that voyage was invited by the Prince 

 of Monaco to accompany him in his steel yacht, " Princesse 

 Alice," on her voyage to Spitzbergen and the Greenland 

 Sea. 



During the voyage of the " Princesse Alice," Hope 

 Island, Bear Island, and Spitzbergen were visited. Mr, 

 Bruce was chiefly occupied in dredging, tow-netting, and 

 collecting of animals generally. Plant-collecting formed 

 only a subsidiary part of his work, and this, together with 

 the limited time spent on Hope Island, accounts for the 

 smallness of the collection of plants from that island, 

 which is marked on the Admiralty charts as " quite 

 barren "; but Mr. Bruce has proved that there is a certain 

 amount of vegetation, and his collection is the first 

 recorded from Hope Island. 



The island lies in the Barentz Sea, to the S.E. of 

 Spitzbergen, between Franz-Josef Land and ]3ear Island. 

 It lies from N.N.E. to S.S.W., is about thirteen miles long 

 and one mile broad, and reaches a height of 1000 feet. 

 The summit is ilat, bare, and cut into gullies, in some of 

 which lie miniature glaciers. 



The vegetation of the part of the island visited was 

 scanty, and even the lichens — luxuriant elsewhere in the 

 Arctic — were dwarfed. On first approaching the land at 

 the S.E. point, Mr. Bruce saw, at a distance of from a 

 quarter to half a mile, a portion of Hat land wliicli seemed 

 to be as green as a meadow, but. unfortunately, there was 



