Arctic Cruise of the U. 8. 8. Thetis in 1889. 179 
light during the short polar summer. Gales have deposited par- 
ticles of soil and débris of plants, along with their seeds, upon the 
surface of the ice to a depth of from four inches to a foot. The 
snow-fall of winter soon vanishes before the June sun, while the 
light covering above the glacier preserves it intact. Vegetation 
is warmed into life in a remarkably short time, and the brown 
coat left by the receding snow is almost miraculously transformed 
to a robe of green and studded here and there with bright polar 
flowers, there being buttercups, dandelions, yellow poppy, bright 
astragals, gentians, daffodils and marguerites. The latter are 
small and unobtrusive, making a showing in a modest way 
as if they wished to apologize to their sister flowers for their 
appearance among them. Like beautiful orphan girls, one cannot 
resist a compassionate tenderness of feeling toward them. But 
these innocent little flowers, chaste as the ice field upon which 
they grow, bloom in the polar garden with as much right as the 
glacier’s gentian. Besides flowers, there are the hardy grasses 
whose roots penetrate the light covering of soil to the ice-bed, 
whence they derive their nourishment. A few Arctic willows are 
to be seen, but they only grow about a foot in length, and trail 
upon the ground. The Pitmegea river is gradually cutting into 
the glacier, receding from its opposite bank and leaving a bed of 
gravel behind. During the summer the ice melts away, leaving 
the protruding soil above it like the eaves of a house; when it 
protrudes too far for the strength of the grass roots, it topples 
over into the river. At the freezing in September, icicles freeze 
from the overhanging sod to the river ice below, forming a narrow 
portico four miles in extent. 
Oxup Stone Hot. 
On the highest peak at the source of Ikuk creek, a south- 
erly tributary of the Pitmegea, are the ruins of a hut and smaller 
outhouse, the like of which has never been met with in North- 
western Alaska. Above the grass line, past perpetual beds of 
snow, up where wild storms sweep away ice, snow, and soil, where 
only a few gray lichens are to be seen, man, at some former time, 
has placed a habitation. On the crest of the mountain there is a 
ragged limestone comb twelve feet high, cracked and shattered 
into flakes by the vigor of the polar winters. On the south side 
of this comb, sheltered from the prevailing north winds, excava- 
tions have been made into the rock. Taking the comb of rock 
