70 POPULAR GEOGEAPHY OF PLANTS. 



follow, when he says that "terrible as the war of the ele- 

 ments there is, they (himself and his fellow- passengers) 

 were in some measure sheltered from its fury." 



Banks and Solander had nevertheless sad experience of 

 the severity of the climate, even in summer. Having one 

 day spent some hours on shore, and collected more than a 

 hundred unknown plants, Sir Joseph Banks next formed a 

 party for the purpose of making an excursion further into 

 the country; upon which occasion he seems to have done 

 things which no one but a botanist would have dreamt of 

 undertaking. The least extraordinary performance was to 

 walk across a bog thickly covered with closely interwoven 

 bushes of Birch; " however, as they were not above three 

 feet high, they stepped over them/' between each of these 

 steps going into the bog up to their ankles ; " but they 

 found a great variety of plants that gratified their curiosity 

 and repaid their toil." Snow however came on, and be- 

 numbing cold and stupor, and the night was passed in an 

 unfrequented wood. Surely this was the saddest botanical 

 excursion that ever was made; for alas, when morning 

 dawned, it found two poor Negroes who had been of the 

 party, dead on the ground, in spite of every effort which 

 had been made to save them. 



