200 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



The Russians tell a somewhat strange story in connection with 

 Pribylov's landing. They say that both the islands were at first 

 without vegetation, save St. Paul, where there was a small " talneek," 

 or willow, creeping along on the ground ; and that on St. George 

 nothing grew, not even grass, except on the place where the car- 

 casses of dead animals rotted. Then, in the course of time, both 

 islands became covered with grass, a great part of it being of the 

 sedge kind, Elymus. This record of Veniaminov, however, is 

 scarcely credible ; there are few, surely, who will not question the 

 opinion that the seals antedated the vegetation, for, according to his 

 own statements, these creatures were there then in the same im- 

 mense numbers that we find them to-day. The vegetation on these 

 islands, such as it is, is fresh and luxuriant during the growing sea- 

 son of June and July and early August, but the beauty and eco- 

 nomic value of trees and shrubbery, of cereals and vegetables, are 

 denied to them by climatic conditions. Still I am strongly inclined 

 to believe that, should some of those hardy shrubs and spruce trees 

 indigenous at Sitka or Kadiak, be transplanted properly to any of 

 the southern hill-slopes of St. Paul most favored by soil, drainage, 

 and bluffs, for shelter from saline gales, they might grow, though I 

 know that, owing to the lack of sunlight, they would never mature 

 their seed. There is, however, during the summer, a beautiful 

 spread of grasses, of flowering annuals, biennials, and perennials, of 

 gayly-colored lichens and crinkled mosses,* which have always af- 

 forded me great delight whenever I have pressed my way over the 

 moors and up the hillsides of the rookeries. 



There are ten or twelve species of grasses of every variety, from 

 close, curly, compact mats to tall stalks tussocks of the wild 

 wheat, Elymus arenaria, standing in favorable seasons waist high 

 the " wheat of the north " together with over one hundred varie- 

 ties of annuals, perennials, sphagnum, cryptogainic plants, etc., all 

 flourishing in their respective positions, and covering nearly every 

 point of rock, tufa, cement, and sand that a plant can grow upon, 

 with a living coat of the greenest of all greens for there is not 

 sunlight enough there to ripen any perceptible tinge of ochre-yel- 

 low into it so green that it gives a deep blue tint to gray noonday 

 shadows, contrasting pleasantly with the varying russets, reds, 



* The mosses at Kamminista, St. Paul, are the finest examples of theii 

 kind on the islands ; they are very perfect, and many species are beautiful. 



