FLORA. 171 



fibres of the fragment of elm were filled up with slender 

 fungoid forms, mycelia; while on its different surfaces 

 appeared several dark -coloured specks, belonging to the 

 genus Pkoma. As it was not probable that plants so 

 minute could have retained, through the terrible severity 

 of an Arctic winter, their delicate naked spores in the 

 perfect condition in which they were found, Mr Berkeley 

 concluded that they must have been developed through 

 that same summer; while from three to four years, in 

 those high latitudes, and amid the rigour of stormy ice- 

 covered seas, would suffice to produce the bleached appear- 

 ance of the wood. Hence he inferred that the plank had 

 not been long exposed. 



' On the other fragment of drift-wood he discovered 

 some deeply-embedded minute black fungoid forms, called 

 Sporidesmium lepraria. Unlike the phomas, which are 

 very ephemeral, these plants possess the longevity of the 

 lichens, and the same patches last for years unchanged on 

 the same pieces of wood, while their traces are discernible 

 for a still longer period. From their condition Mr Berke- 

 ley concluded that the fungi on the drifted wood had not 

 been recently developed, but that, on the contrary, they 

 were the remains of the species which existed on the 

 drift-wood when used for fuel by the unfortunate crews of 

 Franklin's ships, the Erebus and the Terror. 



' There can be no doubt whatever, as Dr Macmillan 

 remarks, considering the circumstances in which they were 

 discovered, and the remarkable appearances they presented 

 there can be no reasonable doubt that both fragments 

 of drift-wood belonged to, or were connected with, the lost 

 ships ; and the curious information regarding the course 

 they pursued at a certain time, furnished by witnesses so 

 extraordinary and unlikely as a few tiny dark specks of 

 cryptogamic vegetation on floating drift-wood, was con- 

 firmed, in a wonderful manner by the after-discovery of 

 the first authentic account ever obtained of the sad and 

 pathetic history of Franklin's expedition.* 



* In Siberia grows the fly-agaric (Agaricus mmcarius), from which the inhabitants 

 obtain an intoxicating liquor of peculiarly dangerous character. It has a tall white 



