170 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
‘Of other cryptogams fungi extend almost to the very 
limits of Arctic vegetation. The Greenlanders and Lapps 
make use of them for tinder, or as styptics for stopping the 
flow of blood, and allaying pain. In Siberia they abound. 
Frequently, in the high latitudes, they take the form of 
“snow mould,” and are found growing on the barren and 
ungenial snow. These species are warmed into life only 
when the sun has grown sufficient to melt the superficial 
snow-crust, without producing a general thaw, and then 
they spread far and wide in glittering wvol-like patches, 
dotted with specks of red or green. When the snow melts 
they overspread the grass beneath like a film of cob-web, 
and in a day or two disappear. 
‘During Captain Penny’s voyage in search of Sir John 
Franklin he picked up two pieces of floating drift-wood, 
far beydnd the usual limit of Eskimo occupation, which, 
from their peculiar appearance excited a lively curiosity. 
The one was found in Robert Bay, off Hamilton Island, 
lat. 76° 2’ north, and long. 76° west —that is, in the route 
which Franklin’s ships, it is supposed, had followed,—and 
was plainly a fragment of wrought elm plank, which had 
been part of a ship’s timbers. It exhibited three kinds of 
surface—one that had been planed and pitched, one 
roughly sawn, and the third split with an axe. The second 
piece of drift-wood was picked up on the north side of 
Cornwallis Island, in lat. 75° 36’ north, and long. 96° west. 
It was a branch of white spruce, much bleached in some 
places, and in others charred and blackened as if it had 
been used for fuel. 
‘On both fragments traces of microscopic vegetation 
were discovered; and as it was thought they might, if 
carefully examined, afford some clue to the fate of Frank- 
lin’s expedition, they were submitted to Mr Berkeley, a 
well-known naturalist. In the report which he addressed 
to the Admiralty he stated that the vegetation in both 
cases resembled the dark olive mottled patches with which 
wooden structures in this country, if exposed to atmospheric 
influences, are speedily covered. The bleached cells and 
