258 R. BROWN, FLORULA DISCOANA. 



From this period until the middle of September, very little snow 

 ever falls, and the climate is mild, and even warm and sunny, as 

 during the summer of 1867. A little rain also falls during most 

 seasons. Vegetation springs up apace, and during the long 

 summer day, of four months, soon comes to maturity. By the 

 beginning of August the flowers are on the wane, and by the end 

 of that month have wholly disappeared. The weather in Septem- 

 ber is uncertain, showers of snow falling, and the nights being 

 dark and cold. By October " bay ice " begins to form in quiet 

 harbours or inlets, and the ground gets its winter mantle of snow. 

 The soil freezes hard to the depth of several feet (where it is so 

 thick), and all nature slumbers. Meteorological observations have 

 been taken at various royal trading posts throughout Greenland.* 

 At Jakobshavu, one of these settlements. Dr. Rudolph, now 

 Governor of Upernavik, kept for upwards of three years a care- 

 ful register of the thermometer. Jakobshavn was our head- 

 quarters, and the locality for the chief portion of the species here 

 enumerated, and it may be taken as typical of the climate of 

 Disco Bay. I therefore present the means of temperature there, 

 as a mean of the climate over the region embraced in the title of 

 this paper. 



Thermometrical Means 



OF THE Climate of Jakobshavn. 







Lat. 



69° 13' 



26^' N. 





January, - 



. 2-4 Fahr. 





July, 



45-4 Fahr. 



February, 



0-3 







August, 



42-4 



March, 



8-2 







September, 



34-6 



April, + 



18-8 







October, 



25-1 



May, 



32-5 







November, 



12-5 



June 



41-5 







December - 



7-5 



Winter (Mean 



Temp.) - 



- 3-4 



Summer, + 43-1 



Spring, 





» 



19-9 



Autumr 



1, 24-1 







Whole year, 



22-5. 





IV. Character of the Country in which the Plants were 

 collected. — The country in which the specimens were collected 

 consists chiefly of bare rounded gneissose hills, planed by old 

 ice-action, and covered with boulders and travelled blocks of 

 stone. In the hollows, where the melting of the snow collects, 

 are peaty bogs, and in other places dry heath-looking tracts, 

 covered with Empetrum, nigrum, Cassiopeia {Andromeda) tetra- 

 gona, Betula nana, and such like plants. The eastern side of 

 these glens is richest in plants, and the vicinity of streams 

 and dripping springs yields a considerable variety. In the 

 Waigat Strait, about Kudlesset, Ounartok, and Atanakerdluk, the 

 geology changes, and bold trap clifls and dykes burst through 

 sedimentary rocks of Miocene age. Here is the limited district 

 containing the now celebrated fossil beds of Greenland. 



I may shortly describe each individual district, taking the 



* Collectanea Meteoroloyica, Fasc. iv. Haunise, 1856. Rink, Tillseg Nr. 8, 

 " Meteorologie " til Gronland geographisk og statistisk beskrevet, Andet Bind, 

 1857. 



