TORREYA 



October, 1918 

 Vol. 18 No. 10 



SOME BOTANICAL NOTES FROM "THE CRUISE OF 

 THE CORWIN" 



By John Muir 



In 1881 John Muir accompanied the "Corvvin's" expedition in search of the 

 "Jeannette" to the islands in Bering Sea and off the coast of Siberia. His account 

 of that trip, in the form of a Journal, has been recently published and contains a 

 fascinating account of a little-known region.* 



The greater part of the volume appears now for the first time and will prove to 

 all interested in that region the best account of it that one can find. In the Appen- 

 dix is printed Muir's account of glaciation and "Botanical Notes." Part of this, 

 without the author ever having seen the proofs was printed as a Treasury Depart- 

 ment Document and is now practically unknown. The editor has added to this 

 Muir's report on the flora of Herald Island and Wrangell Land which "remains 

 after thirty-six years, the only one ever made on the vegetation of these remote 

 Arctic regions." All of the book is well worth reading and the reprinting of the 

 botanical section of the Appendix, through the courtesy of the publishers, makes 

 available to our readers that part of the volume which relates to plants. — N. T. 



Introductory 

 The plants named in the following notes were collected at 

 many localities on the coasts of Alaska and Siberia, and on St. 

 Lawrence, Wrangell, and Herald Islands, between about latitude 

 54° and 71° N., longitude 161° and 178° W., in the course of 

 short excursions, some of them less than an hour in length. 

 Inasmuch as the flora of the arctic and subarctic regions is 

 nearly the same everywhere, the discovery of many species new 

 to science was not to be expected. The collection, however, 

 will no doubt be valuable for comparison with the plants of 

 other regions. In general the physiognomy of the vegetation 

 of the polar regions resembles that of the alpine valleys of the 



* Muir, J. The Cruise of the Corwin. Journal of the Arctic Expedition of 

 1881 in search of DeLong and the Jeannette. Edited by W. F. Bade. Pp. 1-279. 

 Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 191 7. Price $2.75. The following reprint 

 from this volume is possible through the courtesy of the publishers. 

 [No. 9, Vol. 18 of ToRREYA, comprising pp. 177-196, was issued 29 October 1918I 



197 



