343 



Cape Dalton (N. Hartz). 



July 18— 2P^- In the lee of (south of) Cap Dalton is 

 a considerable lagoon, cut off from the open sea by a low, 

 black, barren sea-margin, which in the northernmost part reaches 

 abt. 4 m above the sealevel. 



In the northern part of the lagoon the winter-ice was still 

 solid; in the shallow water near the margin was found here a 

 peculiar Fucus inflatus var. membranacea\ a quantity of drift- 

 wood had been washed ashore. 



The rocks here were basalt. Here, as everywhere on the 

 outer coast it was a very conspicuous fact that the vegetation 

 doesn't reach a passably luxuriant development till at a hundred 

 or a few hundred metres above the the sea level; and not only 

 is the vegetation more vigorous at this elevation, it was also far 

 more advanced in development than the vegetation of the low- 

 land. Thus e. g. Pedicularis hirsuta, which in the lowland was 

 not even fully blown, had shed its flowers at a height of a few 

 hundred metres; Cassiope tetragona was flowering much more 

 richly up here than farther down. The cold mist, which often 

 settles on the lowland , assuredly acts highly cowing and hin- 

 dering upon the vegetation down here along the coast. On one 

 of the days while we were staying here the temperature of the 

 air in the lowland, where the fog reigned and a cold wind blew, 

 was -=- 2° C, while a few hundred metres further up, above the 

 fogbank, it showed -|-IO°C.; up here the weather was calm, 

 and the sun was shining while the fog was still enveloping 

 the lowland. 



While the vegetation was extremely poor in the lowland it 

 was surprisingly luxuriant when you got a few hundred m 

 mountainwards. On moist, mould-covered, partly densely moss- 

 grown, terrace-shaped ledges in abt. 200 m height above the 

 level of the sea were noted: Numerous vigorous lufts of 

 Sedum Rhodiola (all pure male or female plants, no herma- 



