156 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
which the name of Tripe de Roche (Gyrophora, 
Fig. 14) has been given as if in mockery. I can- 
not resist the inclination to transcribe from this 
melancholy narrative a single fragmentary passage 
which will give some idea of the fearful condition 
to which these heroic adventurers in the cause of 
science were often reduced. I need not preface 
it by any comment of mine; it speaks for itself. 
“Mr. Hood, who was now nearly exhausted, was 
obliged to walk at a gentle pace in the rear, Dr. 
Richardson kindly keeping beside him, whilst 
Franklin led the foremost men, that he might 
make them halt occasionally till the stragglers 
came up. Credit, however, one of their most active 
hunters, became lamentably weak, from the effects 
of tripe de roche upon his constitution, and Vail- 
lant, from the same cause, was getting daily more 
emaciated. They only advanced six miles during 
the day, and at night satisfied the cravings of hun- 
ger by a small quantity of tripe de roche, mixed 
up with some scraps of roasted leather. Having 
boiled and eaten the remains of their old shoes, 
and every shred of leather which could be picked 
up, they set forward at nine, like living skeletons, 
advancing by inches, as it were, over bleak hills, 
separated by equally barren valleys, which con- 
tained not the slightest trace of vegetation except 
. this eternal tripe de roche.” The dreadful un- 
