Sept. 20, 1888 J 



NA TURE 



493 



fascination to the geographer, geologist, and botanist in 

 particular, and may lead to the despatch of an Expedition 

 on a larger scale and with a wider scientific scope. 



It may be of interest here briefly to recall the attempts 

 which have been made from time to time to cross the 

 Greenland continent. 



As is well known, Greenland has never been crossed 

 by human being, although there is a tradition, confirmed 

 by Holm and Garde, that a young girl from Pikiudelek, 

 on the east coast, driven from home by cruelty, wandered 

 on foot across the ice to the west coast. However, in 

 modern times many attempts have been made, as, for 

 instance, by Dalager (a Dane), Dr. John Rae, Messrs. 

 Whymper and Brown, Messrs. Jensen, Kornerup, and 

 Groth, and Nordenskiold in 1870 and 1883. All of these 

 attempts were failures, with the exception of that of 

 Nordenskiold in 1883 referred to, when he succeeded, in 

 lat. 68£° N., in reaching 75 miles inland, and his two 

 Lapps 140 miles further, or 215 miles, i.e. a little more 

 than half the width of the country. Finally, we have the 

 scantily-known wandering, in June of last year, of Mr. 

 Peary, an Amerian engineer, and Herr Maigaard, a 

 Dane, who claim to have reached about 100 miles inland 

 on the ice from Jakobshavn, and reached an elevation of 

 about 7000 feet above the sea ; but the weather was 

 unfavourable. It is worthy of note that this elevation is 

 far higher than that recorded by Nordenskiold a little 

 further south, viz. about 6000 feet. 



It is impossible to close this resume of Dr. Nansen's 

 plans without referring to the much-disputed theory 

 of there being, if not a fertile interior somewhere in 

 Greenland, at all events land free from ice and snow, as 

 advocated by Nordenskiold, but which he failed to find. 

 We have it however now, on the authority of Dr. Nansen, 

 that in spite of this failure the famous Swedish explorer 

 is still of opinion that such conditions may exist some- 

 where to the north or south of the track followed by 

 himself. Dr. Nansen also supports this theory, which is, 

 leaving the " Fdhn " wind theory out of the question, 

 based, firstly, on the circumstance that the reindeer herds 

 on the west coast disappear from the coast in the summer, 

 when it is surmised that they proceed to this interior 

 " oasis," as it has been termed ; and, secondly, on the 

 discovery by Nordenskiold of reindeer horn far in on the 

 ice ; thirdly, the theory is claimed to be supported by 

 the fact of Nordenskiold's two Lapps having in the middle 

 of Greenland seen two ravens coming from the north to 

 " have a look at them," and return in the same direction. 

 Hence, it is maintained, some ice-free land must exist 

 further north. But as to the wanderings of the reindeer, 

 such take place every summer in Norway, when the 

 animals repair to the glaciers in order to escape from their 

 dread tormentors the gadfly and the heat. It is, however, 

 curious that the Greenlanders themselves, as well as the 

 Eskimo, according to Captain Holm, firmly believe in an 

 ice-free and populated interior, the inhabitants of which 

 are of enormous stature, fierce, and dangerous magicians, 

 and it is this latter belief which is the cause of the natives 

 refusing to act as guides or participate in explorations of 

 the interior. The east coast natives by the way maintain, 

 too, that Scoresby Sound in the extreme north (Holm, 

 "East Coast Expedition, 1883-85") is a fjord separating 

 Greenland from the rest of the Arctic regions ; that once 

 a Greenlander sailed through it from west to east, and 

 that near its southern shores resides a warlike tribe of 

 Greenlanders. 



It was Dr. Nansen's intention to have attempted to 

 land in the neighbourhood of Scoresby Sound, where no 

 European has ever set foot, but it was impossible to get 

 further north than Cape Dan on account of ice. It should 

 be mentioned that the present expedition is in a great 

 degree due to the munificence of Herr Augustus Game* I, 

 of Copenhagen, who despatched Lieutenant Hovgaard's 

 Arctic Expedition of 1880, and has received valuable 



assistance from such Greenland explorers as Nordenskiold, 

 Rink, Holm, Ryder, and Marigaard, as well as the Royal 

 Geographical Society. 



If all goes well, it may return to Europe before the last 

 vessel leaves Greenland at the end of September. 



If successful, it cannot fail to throw some further light 

 upon the interesting scientific problems of that mystic 

 northern continent, and incite other explorers to follow in 

 Dr. Nansen and his colleagues' footsteps. 



THE CENTENARY OF THE CALCUTTA 

 BOTANIC GARDEN. 



THE Report of Dr. George King, the Superintendent 

 * of the Botanic Garden of Calcutta, for the past year 

 gives a brief history of the work of that institution during 

 the century of its existence, which has just been com- 

 pleted. The suggestion for its foundation was made to 

 the Government in Calcutta in 1786 by Colonel Robert 

 Kyd, then Superintendent of the East India Company's 

 dockyard at Kidderpore. The adoption of the proposal 

 was urged upon the Board in London by the Governor- 

 General, and upon their sanctioning it a large piece of 

 land at Shalimar was chosen as the site, and Colonel Kyd 

 was elected the first Superintendent. He held the post 

 till his death in 1793. At the outset it was understood 

 that the Garden was to be made a source of information 

 for the Company's servants, and a place in which ex- 

 periments could be made on those exotics which were of 

 economic value. It was also intended to be a horticul- 

 tural and agricultural garden, which would assist in 

 introducing indigenous Indian products to new markets. 

 The earliest efforts of Colonel Kyd were directed to the 

 introduction of trees yielding nutmeg, cloves, and cinna- 

 mon, and to attempt to cultivate them. This, however, 

 was a failure, the climate being shown to be quite un- 

 suitable to them. The equatorial fruits, such as mango- 

 steen and breadfruit were tried with a similar result, and 

 also the temperate fruits of Europe, and thus at an early 

 stage it was demonstrated that any such effort was quite 

 useless. Colonel Kyd introduced tea cultivation, and in 

 this he was highly successful, and it was owing to his 

 efforts that the tea-industry has become one of the most 

 important in India. On the death of Colonel Kyd, Dr. 

 William Roxburgh, the Company's Botanist in Madras, 

 was appointed to the post, and continued in it till 1814. 

 He was an ardent botanist, and was the first who attempted 

 to draw up a systematic account of the plants of India. 

 His Flora hidica contained descriptions of all the indi- 

 genous plants he had met, and also of the exotics in 

 cultivation at Calcutta. This book was not published 

 till 1832, and it was, till Sir Joseph Hooker commenced 

 his work on the " Flora of British India" in 1872, the only 

 book from which a good knowledge of Indian plants 

 could be acquired. Besides his " Flora Indica," Roxburgh 

 published " Plantae Coromandalianae," descriptions of 

 three hundred of the most representative plants on the 

 Coromandel Coast. Dr. Roxburgh, who left India on 

 account of failing health, was succeeded by Dr. Buchanan- 

 Hamilton, who collected a mass of information about 

 the fauna and flora of India, a portion of which he 

 published in his own name, but the greater part was 

 issued in Montgomery Martin's " History, Topography, 

 and Statistics of Eastern India." In 1817, Dr. Wallich 

 became Superintendent. Wallich was a most energetic 

 man, and during his term of office he made collections 

 in Kumaon, Nepal, Tenasserim, Singapore, Penang, and 

 other places. His collections of dried plants were taken 

 by him to London, and after their classification they were 

 distributed to the chief botanical institutions in Europe. 

 Dr. Wallich published three fine volumes, " Plantar 

 Asiatics Rariores," illustrated with excellent figures. On 

 Dr. Wallich's retirement in 1846, Dr. Hugh Falconer, who 





