58 STELLER'S JOURNAL 



in Kamchatka. The other plants collected by me in America I 

 have recorded in a separate list.^^^ 



The animals occurring there and supplying the natives with 



idaea baccis rubris" and "Vitis idaea fol. oblongis crenatis fr- nigricanti. 

 C. B. P." 



What Steller means by "Scharbocksbeeren," scurvy berries, is difficult 

 to make out. Among berries enumerated by him in the "Catalogus" 

 as having been observed on Kayak Island there are three in addition to 

 the above, viz. "Sambucus racemosa rubra. C. B. P. In maxima copia, 

 occupat montes"; "Vitis idaea magna, quibusdam sive Myrtillus grandis, 

 I. P. Parce" {Vaccinium uliginosum L.) ; and "Chamaeneri clyminum 

 Norvegicum" {Cornus suecica L.). As the berries of Sambucus in that 

 region (Yakutat) do not ripen until about the first of September (Funston, 

 Contr. U. S. Natl. Herbarium, Vol. 3, 1896, p. 329). it is not likely that 

 this species is meant. I am not aware that the Cornus has ever been 

 designated as an antiscorbutic. 



On the other hand it seems strange that Steller does not include 

 Oxycoccos in his list. The cranberry might perhaps have been considered 

 by him as the scurvy berry. It is equally strange that this plant is omitted 

 in his list of Bering Island plants, though it occurs there plentifully 

 (Fedtschenko, Flore des lies du Commandeur, 1906, pp. 23-29). It has 

 also been suggested that Streptopus amplexifolius (L.) D. C. may have 

 been the scurvy berry. Although occurring in the region (Contr. U. S. 

 Natl. Herbarium, Vol. 3, 1896. p. 346) I do not find it in Steller's "Cata- 

 logus" unless it be the "Smilax altera," but in his catalogue of the Bering 

 Island plants (No. 4 in the archival designation mentioned in the next 

 footnote) it is enumerated as "Polygonatum idem quod ad prom. Eliae." 



Empetrum is Empetrum nigrum L. (S) 



"'The MS here continues "at the end, which is appended to the 

 description of the rarer and peculiar plants of the region." This list is 

 one of five manuscript documents in Latin in the archives of the Academy 

 of Sciences at Petrograd (Arkhiv Konferentsia, Bundle 13 C, Nos. 4-8, Q), 

 four of them lists of plants and the fifth the description of the rarer 

 plants just referred to. The list here in question (Bundle 13 C, No. 5 Q) 

 is entitled "Catalogus plantarum intra sex horas in parte Americae 

 septentrionalis iuxta promontorium Eliae observataram anno 1741 die 

 21 lulii sub gradu latitudinis 59." Photostatic copies of these documents 

 are now in the Library of Congress and the library of the American 

 Geographical Society. Mr. Litvinov, the curator of the Academy's 

 herbarium, told me in 191 7 that only a few of these specimens are now 

 in the Academy; the greater part of them were sold to the British Museum 

 by Pallas. (G) 



