Some Notes concerning the Vegetation of Germania Land 355 



and spying gulls who, seated upon the neighbouring icebergs, waited 

 for the moment when the lawful owner of the prey should retire. 



On the 4th the minimum thermometer recorded for the first 

 time a positive temperature ; soon afterwards we had east winds 

 which again for some days brought the thermometer down below 

 freezing point. 



On June 10 we have snow and wind with a high, almost positive, 

 temperature the whole day. 



Under such circumstances the snow which has fallen benefits 

 the whole surface of the ground, as it is now allowed to melt where 

 it lies. Seen from Termometerfjeld the ground down towards 

 Skibshavn was white at noon; but before long the soil, already 

 somewhat thawed and sun-heated absorbs the melting snow. In 

 contradistinction to a considerable part of the winter-snow, which 

 disappears by evaporation early in spring and leaves behind it only 

 a dry bottom, this summer-downfall penetrates easily to the roots 

 of the plants, which are just now in want of it. 



On moss-tufts and other plant-carpets there is not the slightest 

 indication of dampness from evaporating snow. But, on the other 

 hand, the fresh verdure of both the moss and the lichen now show 

 that they have benefited by the moisture from above. The boggy 

 stretches are also now so far thawed that the plant-life there can 

 begin to awaken; already some days ago drinking-water had been 

 fetched from a small streamlet near Basiskæret. 



The weather was also quite summer-like on June 13 when I 

 made an excursion to Hvalrosodde. The surface was in a bad state 

 a great part of the way and especially the last part where the 

 melting snow had already formed large ponds upon the ice. In the 

 bay off" the mouth of Lakseelv the wind had covered the ice with a 

 rather considerable layer of dust and sand from the lowland above 

 and this furthers, in a high degree, the melting of the snow, so 

 that both the number and the depth of the pools were greater here 

 than farther from land. And the conditions grew perceptibly worse 

 day by day. At 3 p. m. the temperature (measured by a swinging 

 thermometer) was -f- 12.4°. From the fore-shore (Fjæren) we had 

 driven our sledges so far into the land, that they just touched the 

 snowless ground; then we stopped to pitch our tents. But now the 

 snow retired so quickly down towards the fore-shore that it was 

 almost noticeable from hour to hour how the distance increased, 

 and although, in the following days, we had fog and a lower tempe- 

 rature, yet several metres of the way to the ice was bare of snow 

 when we left the place on the 17th. 



In the lower part of the bed of the Lakseelv, which is at this 



