12 
larger extent interested in it. Some specimens indeed are to be found in the Lon- 
don collections, labelled as emanating from Ross' second voyage, but as far as I 
have been able to find out, they have never formed the subject for any separate 
publication; the Appendix of Ross' Narrative contaiiis no botany. Of course they 
niay in some degree have been taken into consideration in låter works, but their 
value is rauch lessened by the circumstance, that it is impossible to make out 
where they come from ; most probably they are collected somewhere in Boothia, but 
they also may be from the neighborhood of the fourth quarters in North Somerset. 
The next explorer who added to the geographical knowledge about Arctic 
America was Captain G. Back, who made two journeys, one överland to the 
seashore west of Boothia and one seavoyage through Hudson Strait to the west. 
The first expedition was begun in the summer of 1833; Back arrived at Fort Resolu- 
tion in the first days of August and immediately prepared for advance to the river 
now bearing his natne, but until that time only known by stateinents of the Indians. 
He did also reach the river, notwithstanding many difficulties, and reconnoitered 
the upper part of it in the autumn. Having wintered at the Great Slave Lake, 
Back set out again in the spring of 1834 and reached the mouth of the river. He 
also sighted a land to the north which he named King Williams Land, but owing 
to the lateness of the season and other reasons he could not proceed farther and 
rested in the belief, that the new-discovered land was part of the continent. Back's 
Narrative contains some scattered notes about the vegetation observed along the route 
of the expedition as well south as north of the woodline. Besides there is annexed 
a list of plants, collected during the progress of the expedition by Dr. Richard 
KiNG who acted as naturalist. King himself has also published a Narrative, but 
there only zoological notes are to be found. The second expedition of Back in 
1836—37 inet with very bad ice-conditions and was hardly able to make any 
discoveries at all, no botanical collections could be made and only a few notes in 
the text refer to vegetation met with at Southhampton Island and vicinity. 
Still there were stretches of the Continental coast left unexplored, and the 
Hudson Bay Company now decided upon sending ,out some of its officers to com- 
plete the investigation. The command of the expedition was trusted jointly to 
P. W. Dease and Th. Simpson who started from winterquarters at Fort Chipewyaii 
in the spring of 1837, and having reached the mouth of the Mackenzie in the 
beginning of July proceeded tho the westward, where they passed, notwithstanding 
the unusually bad conditions of ice and weather they bad to contend with, Return 
Reef of Franklin and bad at the end of the month only a very short space left 
to the previously explored coast at Point Barrow. As the ice seemed likely to 
jn-event any furtlier progress of tlie boats, Simpson here separated from the main 
party and witli a few followers proceeded over land to Point Barrow, where he 
arrived on Aug. 4tli. thus eompleting the knowledge about the western part of the 
Continental northcoast. Returning up the Mackenzie the expedition wintered at 
Fort Confidence and in the spring of 1838 reached the Coppermine River by a 
