170 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



' Of other cryptogams fungi extend almost to the very 

 limits of Arctic vegetation. The Greenlanders and Lapps 

 make use of them for tinder, or as styptics for stopping the 

 flow of blood, and allaying pain. In Siberia they abound. 

 Frequently, in the high latitudes, they take the form of 

 " snow mould," and are found growing on the barren and 

 ungenial snow. These species are warmed into life only 

 when the sun has grown sufficient to melt the superficial 

 snow-crust, without producing a general thaw, and then 

 they spread far and wide in glittering wool-like patches, 

 dotted with specks of red or green. When the snow melts 

 they overspread the grass beneath like a film of cob-web, 

 and in a day or two disappear. 



' During Captain Penny's voyage in search of Sir John 

 Franklin he picked up two pieces of floating drift-wood, 

 far beyond the usual limit of Eskimo occupation, which, 

 from their peculiar appearance excited a lively curiosity. 

 The one was found in Robert Bay, off Hamilton Island, 

 lat. 76 2' north, and long. 76 west that is, in the route 

 which Franklin's ships, it is supposed, had followed, and 

 was plainly a fragment of wrought elm plank, which had 

 been part of a ship's timbers. It exhibited three kinds of 

 surface one that had been planed and pitched, one 

 roughly sawn, and the third split with an axe. The second 

 piece of drift-wood was picked up on the north side of 

 Cornwallis Island, in lat. 75 36' north, and long. 96 west. 

 It was a branch of white spruce, much bleached in some 

 places, and in others charred and blackened as if it had 

 been used for fuel. 



' On both fragments traces of microscopic vegetation 

 were discovered ; and as it was thought they might, if 

 carefully examined, afford some clue to the fate of Frank- 

 lin's expedition, they were submitted to Mr Berkeley, a 

 well-known naturalist. In the report which he addressed 

 to the Admiralty he stated that the vegetation in both 

 cases resembled the dark olive mottled patches with which 

 wooden structures in this country, if exposed to atmospheric 

 influences, are speedily covered. The bleached cells and 



