204 



soil is shown on the ice-bluffs around Eschscholtz Bay, where it 

 has been undermined by the melting of the ice on which it rests. 

 In falling down the face of the ice-wall it is well shaken and rolled 

 before it again comes to rest on terraced or gently sloping portions 

 of the wall. The original vegetation of the tundra is thus 

 destroyed, and tall grasses spring up on the fresh, mellow ground 

 as it accumulates from time to time, growing lush and rank, 

 though in many places that we noted these new soil-beds are 

 not more than a foot in depth, and lie on the solid ice. 



At the time of our last visit to this interesting region, about 

 the middle of September, the weather was still fine, suggesting 

 the Indian summer of the Western States. The tundra glowed 

 in the mellow sunshine with the colors of the ripe foliage of 

 vaccinium, empetrum, arctostaphylos, and dwarf birch; red, 

 purple, and yellow, in pure bright tones, while the berries, 

 hardly less beautiful, were scattered everywhere as if they had 

 been sown broadcast with a lavish hand, the whole blending 

 harmoniously with the neutral tints of the furred bed of lichens 

 and mosses on which the bright leaves and berries were painted. 



On several points about the sound the white spruce occurs in 

 small, compact groves within a few miles of the shore; and 

 pyrola, which belongs to wooded regions, is abundant where no 

 trees are now in sight, tending to show that areas of considerable 

 extent, now treeless, were once forested. 



The plants collected are: 



Luzula hyperhorea R. Br. Lupinus arcticus Watson. 



Allium schoenoprasum L. Hedysarum boreale Nutt. 



Salix polaris Wahlenb. Empetrum nigrum L. 



Polygonum viviparum L. Pyrola rotundijolia L. ^•ar. pum- 

 Stellaria longipes Goldie. ila Hook. 



Cerastium alpinum L. var. Beh- Arctostaphylos alpina Spreng. 



ringianum Regel. Cassiope tetragone (D. Don.) 

 Papaver nudicaule L. Desv. 



Saxifraga tricuspidata Ret;^. Ledum palustre L. 



Potentilla anserina L. var. Vaccinium Vitis-Idaea L. 



" hiflora Willd. Vaccinium uliginosum L. var. 

 " fruticosa L. mucronata Herder. 



