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bases of the craters, as well as the moraines and rough soil-beds 

 outspread on the low portions of the short, narrow valleys. 



On the twentieth of May we found the showy Geiim glaciate 

 already in flower, also an arctostaphylos and draba, on a slope 

 facing the south, near the harbor of Unalaska. The willows, 

 too, were then beginning to put forth their catkins, while a 

 multitude of green points were springing up in sheltered spots 

 wherc\-er the snow had vanished. At a height of four or five 

 hundred feet, however, winter was still unbroken, with scarce 

 a memory of the rich bloom of summer. 



During a few short excursions along the shores of Unalaska 

 Harbor, and on two of the adjacent mountains, towards the 

 end of May and the beginning of October, we saw about fifty 

 species of flowering plants — empetrum, vaccinium, bryanthus, 

 pyrola, arctostaphylos, ledum, cassiope, lupinus, geranium, epi- 

 lobium, silene, draba, and saxifraga, being the most telling 

 and characteristic of the genera represented. Empetrum nigrum, 

 a bryanthus, and three species of vaccinium make a grand 

 display when in flower, and show their massed colors at a con- 

 siderable distance. 



Almost the entire surface of the valleys and hills and lower 

 slopes of the mountains is covered with a dense, spongy plush 

 of lichens and mosses similar to that which covers the tundras 

 of the Arctic regions, making a rich green mantle on which the 

 showy, flowering plants are strikingly relieved, though these 

 grow far more luxuriantly on the banks of the streams where 

 the drainage is less interrupted. Here also the ferns, of which 

 I saw three species, are taller and more abundant, some of them 

 arching their broad, delicate fronds over one's shoulders, while 

 in similar situations the tallest of the five grasses that were seen 

 reaches a height of nearly six feet, and forms a growth close 

 enough for the farmer's scythe. 



Not a single tree has been seen on any of the islands of the 

 chain west of Kodiak, excepting a few spruces brought from 

 Sitka and planted at Unalaska by the Russians about fifty 

 years ago. They are still alive in a dwarfed condition, having 

 made scarce any appreciable growth since they were planted. 



