10 
of planfcs and other botanical notes I have found in the Journal of Parry will be 
used in the following. 
After only one winter at home Parry again made an altempt for a North- 
west passage in 1821, being, however, less successful this time. He believed that 
the best passage was to be songht for farther south than he liad sailed on his first 
voyage and consequently he entered through Hudson Strait and made several vain 
attempts to discover a passage at the northwestern extremity of Hudson Bay. 
Everywhere, however, he came upon the coast of the mainland, and consequently 
the collections and observations from this expedition have reference in the greater 
part to the Continent of America. Still they are of considerable interest for the 
knowledge of the flora of the Archipelago also, as made just at the borderline 
between the continental area and that wich forms the subject of the present investiga- 
tion; therefore 1 shall have to use them in the following together with the few 
notes made at places belonging to the Archipelago. The botanical collections of 
Parrys second voyage are treated in the Appendix to his Journal by W. J. Hooker. 
When Parry returned in 1823, having spent two winters in quarters at the 
eastern coast of tlie Melville Peninsula, one at Winter Island and one at Igioolik, 
he bad not, however, been discouraged by the failure of his second attempt, nor 
bad the English government lost its faith in his ability, and already in 1824 he 
again sailed westward to try another way to the Pacific. In the second journey he 
bad been accompanied by nearly the same officers as in the first, and also now in 
the third voyage his coadjutors were, with few exceptions, the same. Thus the 
contributors to the botanical knowledge about the different regions visited during 
Parry's three expeditions aie nearly the same. The way to the west, choosen by 
Parry in 1824, lay through Lancaster Sound and from there he bad planned to 
go southward through Prince Regents Inlet, but difficult iceconditions compelled 
him to stop at the northern end of that sound and take up his winterquarters at 
Port Bowen on the coast of Baffin Land, a point which he bad visited in his first 
journey and than described as the most barren spot he ever saw. The botanical 
harvest in such a place could of course not become very rich, and in trying to get 
southward in 1825 Parry lost one of his ships, the »Hecla» getting wrecked on 
the shore of North Somerset. Having inimediately returned to England in the 
other vessel, Parry abandoned further attempts to tind a passage north of America. 
Also from his third expedition, however, he brought home some botanical collec- 
tions which were treated by Hooker. 
At the thime when Parry began his work of exploration in the Arctic Archi- 
pelago, the northernmost parts of the continent were still entirely unknown with 
the exception only of the suiTOundings of two large rivers, the Coppermine which 
Hbarne had followed to its mouth in 1771, and the Mackenzie, explored in 1789 
by the man whose name it now bears; at the same time, however, another expedi- 
tion started which was to contribute in a large degree to the geography of Arctic 
America. It was commanded by Captain John Franklin and lasted from 1819 to 
