INDICATIONS OF LAND 29 



grass** ^^ common in Kamchatka, which was a most infallible 

 indication of a near coast, because this grass grows everywhere 

 along the beaches of the ocean, both in Kamchatka and America, 

 and on account of the smoothness of its straw would long have 

 been scattered if it had not been carried by the tide immediately 

 from shore towards us. Other vegetable objects which from 

 day to day and from hour to hour were noted down in my diary 

 need not be mentioned. 



Even though such irrefutable indications of a near land were 

 submitted with reason, great respect, and patience to the 

 officers and they were advised to lay the course toward the 

 north in order to reach land sooner, and even though the Captain 

 Commander had always himself been of the same opinion but, 

 being outvoted by the other officers, had felt himself constrained 

 to yield without necessity and in spite of his rank and authority, 

 nevertheless he considered it, as did the other officers, ridiculous, 

 beneath his dignity, and annoying to receive such advice from 

 me, a man not versed in nautical matters. Therefore he used to 

 answer me offhand that I did not know how to judge such 

 affairs; in many parts of the ocean the whole sea was overgrown 

 with weeds; what could I say to that? It did no good to reply 

 that I was as fully aware of this fact as I was of the places near 

 the Cape Verde and the Bermuda Islands where these seaweeds, 



** Gramen paniculatum arundinaceum, -panicula densa spadicea 

 Stell.— P. 



6 5 "grosses Schilfgras" in the text of the pubHshed version, to which 

 words the above footnote by Pallas refers. This Latin name, omitting 

 the attribution to Steller, is the term used in the MS. Pallas transferred 

 it to a footnote and supplied a German equivalent in his text. 



Professor A. S. Hitchcock, the well-known agrostologist, to whom I sub- 

 mitted the matter, writes me "that the grass referred to is probably 

 Calamagrostis scahra Presl. The phrase name you quote is the one 

 applied by pre-Linnaean authors to the European reed, Calamagrostis 

 epigejos (L.) Roth. The corresponding plant on the Alaskan coast is 

 the one mentioned, which, however, is usually reported as C. langsdorfii 

 Trin., a Siberian species." Both C. langsdorfii and C. arundinacea 

 (Linnaeus) are recorded from the Commander Islands (Fedtschenko, 

 Flore des lies du Commandeur, 1906, pp. 122 and 123). (S) 



