3DG PllOF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 



class in the register of science ; and for that purpose I propose for 

 this substance the name Kryokonite (from Kpvoq and kovi^). 



When I persuaded our botanist, Mr. Berggren, to accompany me 

 in the journey over the ice, we joked with him on the singularity 

 of a botanist making an excursion into a tract, perhaps the only 

 one in the world, that was a perfect desert as regards botany. This 

 expectation was, however, not confirmed. Dr. Berggren's quick 

 eye soon discovered, partly on the surface of the ice, partly in the 

 above-mentioned powder, a brown polycellular Alga, which, little 

 as it is, together with the powder and certain other microscopic 

 organisms by which it is accompanied, is the most dangerous enemy 

 to the mass of ice, so many thousand feet in height and hundred 

 miles in extent. The dark mass absorbs a far greater amount of 

 the sun's rays of heat than the white ice, and thus produces over 

 its whole surface deep holes which greatly promote the jn'ocess of 

 melting. The same Plant has no doubt played the same part in 

 our country ; and we have to thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of 

 ice which formerly covered the whole of northern Europe and 

 America have now given place to shady woods and undulating 

 corn-fields. Of course, a great deal of the grey powder is carried 

 down in the rivers, and the blue ice at the bottom of them is not 

 unfrequently concealed by a dark dust. How rich this mass is in 

 organic matter is proved by the circumstance, amongst others, that 

 the quantity of organic matter in it was sufGcient to bring a large 

 collection of the grey powder, Avhich had been carried away to a 

 distant part of the ice by sundry now dried-up glacier-streams, 

 into so strong a process of fermentation or putrefaction, that the 

 mass, even at a great distance, emitted a most disagreeable smell, 

 like that of butyric acid. 



Dr. Berggren has communicated the following notice* of the 

 Microscopic Organisms met with on the Inland Ice. 



*' One of the species of Algae met with on the inland ice occurred 

 in such vast quantities, that the surface of the ice throughout 

 larger or smaller tracts was tinted with a peculiar colour. Two 

 others seemed exclusively to belong to the fine sand, which is found 

 either in the form of a thin covering on the surface of the ice, or 

 as a more or less thick layer at the bottom of the pipe-like holes 

 that appear in the surface. The first-mentioned species, occurring 

 copiously, does not require any such substratum, but is found 

 principally on the sides of ice- hills, where the water from the 

 melting ice filtered itself out between the little inequalities of the 

 surface. 



*' The most copiously represented species has the form of a short 

 thread, not spreading out in branches, but consisting of a single 

 row of cells ; the number of cells in each thread is 2, 4, 8, or at 

 most 16. Threads of 4 and S cells are most common. The species 

 very frequently appears only as a single cell. The threads are 

 usually a little bent, sometimes, when the number of cells is 16, 

 forming a complete semicircle. The number 2 or its multiples 



* A more detailed account, accorapanied by drawii)gs, of these remarkable 

 Algae will herealtor be published in the " K. Vet. Akademiens Ofvcrsigc." 



