﻿180 PLANTS KANEAN.E GRCENLANDIC^E. 



obligations to Professor Torrey for the determination of the Graminece, and his assist- 

 ance in some of the most perplexing genera; and also to my friend Thomas P. James, 

 Esq., for the entire enumeration of mosses, Hepaticse and Lichens. I am most happy 

 to take this opportunity to render to these three gentlemen my sincere acknowledg- 

 ments for their great kindness. 



Laying aside the consideration of the lost packages, Dr. Kane's collections are yet 

 among the richest and most interesting ever brought by Arctic and Polar explorers. 

 They not only afford a considerable accession to our previous knowledge of the vegeta- 

 tion of Northern Greenland, but they develop facts of some importance in a physico- 

 geographical point of view : — 



First. — By exhibiting, throughout the range of coasts between the Arctic and Polar 

 circles, no perceptible change in the number and identity of the species therein col- 

 lected ; thus establishing, as far at least as Greenland is concerned, that the third or 

 Polar zone of Sir John Richardson* might as well begin at the 67th as at the 73d N. 

 latitude. 



Secondly. — By the reappearance, beyond the limits of Smith's Sound, of Hesperis 

 Pallasii and Vesicaria ardica, in a perfect fruiting state — two plants belonging rather 

 to the milder regions of the Arctic zone, and which have never been found yet, I be- 

 lieve, in the higher intervening points. Both these plants belonged to a scanty collec- 

 tion of eight or ten species, made late in the season, on the newly discovered lands of 

 Washington and Humboldt, on the very verge of that mysterious Polar sea which Dr. 

 Kane's expedition had the good fortune to espy and see free of ice as far as the eye 

 could reach. Such a fact indeed, although limited to two species, seems to indicate 

 peculiar isothermal influences, depending either on warm currents, greater depth of 

 water, or actual depression of our globe at its poles. 



Another remarkable feature of Dr. Kane's collections is, that, dividing into two 

 equal parts the whole extent of coasts visited by him, and each section presenting 

 about the same number of stations at which herborizations were made, the northern 

 section, from Upernavik to Washington Land, has yielded more dicotyledonous plants 

 than the southern, from Fiske Fiord to 73° ; and Smith's Sound alone, only thr.ee de- 

 grees in length, has proved nearly as rich. (See Table No. 1.) 



These unexpected results show that the Polar zone cannot properly be compared 

 with the Alpine regions of the more temperate climates. The uninterrupted action 

 of light and heat, during the whole period between the rising and setting of the sun 

 which marks the day or summer season of the poles, — a purer and damper atmosphere 

 aided, perhaps, by a greater accumulation of electric fluid, &c. — must necessarily and 

 more promptly (in the lowest levels) actuate and perfect the vegetation, not only of 



*See Appendix to Searching Expedition, London, 1851, p. 319 and following. 



