I 



* 



* 



Arctic Exj)Ioration$. §45 



nity of Alpine flowering i 



t^ 



vidual growth allowed no ambitious species to overpower its neiglibor, so 

 that many families were crowded together in a rich flower-bed. In a 

 little space that I could cover with my peajacket, the veined leaves of 

 the Pyrola were peeping out among chickweeds and saxifrages, the sorrel 

 * M*l ^p^^"<^^l"s. I even found a poor gentian, stunted and reduced, biit 



like every thing around it, in all the perfection of miniatiire pro- 

 portions. 



** As this mossy parterre approached the rocky walls that hemmed it 

 in, tussocks of sedges and coarse grass began to show^ themselves, mixe<l 

 with heaths and birches; and still further on, at the margin of the horse- 



still, 



Arctic 



debris, 



typed 



natives of another zone. The poor things had lost their uprightness, and 

 learned to escape the elements by trailing along the rocks. Few rose 

 above my shoes, and none above my ankles ; yet shady alleys and heaven- 

 pointing avenues could not be more impressive examples of creative 

 adaptation. Here I saw^ the bleaberry ( Vaccinium ulir/inosuin) in flower 

 and in fruit — I could cover it wnth a wine-glass ; the wild houey-suckle 

 {Azalea procumhens) of our Pennsylvania woods — I could stick the entire 

 plant in my button-hole; the Andromeda tetragona^ like a gi-een marabou 

 feather. 



" Strangest among these transformations came the willows. One, the 

 Salix herbacea^ hardly larger than a trefoil clover ; another, the S. glauca^ 

 [S. Uva-ursi], like a young althea, just bursting from its seed. A third, 

 the S. lanata [S. arctica], a triton among these boreal minnows, looked 

 like an unfortunate garter-snake, bound here and there by claw-like radi- 

 cles, which, unable to penetrate the inhospitable soil, had spread them- 

 selves out upon the surface — traps for the broken Hchens and fostering 

 ^oss which formed its scanty moulds 



"I had several opportunities, while taking sextant elevations of the 

 fleadlands, to measure th^ moss beds of this cove, both by sections where 



had left denuded faces, and by piercing through 



^ staff These mosses formed an investing mould, 



built up layer upon layer, until it had attained a mean depth of five feet. 

 At one place, near the sea line, it was seven feet ; and even here the slo^w 

 processes of Arctic decomposition had not entirely destroyed the delicate 

 radicles and stems. The fronds of the pioneering lichens were still recog- 



lake 



Sizable, entangled among tlie rest. 



" Yet these little layers represented in their diminutive stratification, 

 tlie deposits of vegetable periods. I counted sixty-eight in the greatest 

 «^ion.* Those chemical processes by which nature converts our autum- 

 nal leaves into pabulum for future growths work slowly ^xQier— First 

 Cruise, pp, 142, 143, 144. 



* *' I copy the number of these layers as I find it raarlced in my journal; yet I 

 ^o so, not without some fear that I may be misled by the chirography of a very 

 nurried note. My recollections arc of a very large number, yet not so larje as that 

 which mv rpsnart. fni- iha iiif^n si^riTjia induces me to retain in the text. 



