308 APPENDIX. No. XIV. 



species in latitude has, for some unknown reason, been 

 restricted, and has not been sufficient to obliterate the evi- 

 dence of this prior direction of migration. 



The comparative richness of the flora from 80 to 83, taken 

 especially in connection with that of Smith Sound, in lat. 

 78 to 80, which contains many Subarctic plants, indicates 

 some peculiarity of climate or other condition in this longi- 

 tude that favours the northern spread of vegetation in this 

 more than in any other Arctic longitude. Thus in Smith 

 Sound there have been gathered : 



Alchemilla vulgaris* 

 Pyrola grandiflora* 

 Bartsia alpina. 

 Armeria vulgaris. 

 Tqfieldia palustris. 

 Hierochloe borealis, and 

 Lycopodium annotinum. 



None of them high Arctic plants in other longitudes, though 

 all of them except the Hierochloe are natives of Greenland. 



These facts seem to indicate that vegetation may be 

 more abundant in the interior of Greenland than is supposed, 

 and that the glacier-bound coast-ranges of that country may 

 protect a comparatively fertile interior. And to this view 

 the altitudinal distribution of vegetation in Grinnell Land 

 lends support : there, where the land is only hilly, flowering 

 plants ascend on unsnowed slopes that dip down to the sea 

 from 1,000 feet elevation ; showing that it is to the presence 

 of lofty mountains on the Greenland coast, and not to its 

 latitude, that its ice-bound shores are due. Thus, too, the 

 abundance of animal life met with between 80 and 83 may 

 be accounted for. Barely sufficient pasture is found along 

 the shores of Grinnell Land during winter for the support of 

 musk-oxen, and from what we know of the vegetation of the 

 Polar Islands to the westward, they are not likely to provide 

 pasturage for large animals, at that season : so that we are 

 almost driven to conclude that Grinnell Land, as well as 



