300 REMARKS AND OPINIONS. 



wliich we did not find in St. Lawrence Bay. We 

 cannot give any more essential difference in the 

 Flora of the two coasts, than that caused by tlie 

 difference of the soil and climate. 



The aspect of nature is the most wintry in the 

 Bay of St. Lawrence. The vegetation, pressed 

 down to the soil, scarcely rises perceptibly in its 

 back ground, where the shrubby willows hardly 

 reacli the knee. The Andromeda polifolia which 

 we found only there, was no more than two or 

 three inches high, and bearing one flower. The 

 Flora of this bay is adorned by a Delphinium^ a 

 Dodecatheon^ an A?-etia, and several species, which 

 we saw only there, of every genuine arctic Alpine 

 genus. Gentianciy Sa.vifraga, Astragalus^ Arthe- 

 misia^ Draba, Ranunculus^ Claytonia^ Sec. Several 

 of them had not been described. 



St. Lawrence Island, lying two degrees farther 

 south, does not differ from St. Lawrence Bay, in 

 respect to vegetation. An Andromeda tetragona^ 

 the Dry as octopetala^ the Diapensia lappotiica^ 

 species of Alpine Myosotis, a Gymnandra, &c. 

 mark, as in St. Lawrence Bay, the character of the 

 Flora. We observe that in this island, transported 

 into the arctic vegetable kingdom, we gathered, in 

 a few minutes, more flowers in blossom than we 

 had observed during several weeks on the island- 

 chain of Radack lying between the tropics. Far- 

 ther to the north, on the Rocky Island,in the interior 

 of Kotzebue's Sound, grows \.\\q Azalea procumbens. 



