14 
of this voyage gives little botaiiical information in the text, but there is a botanical 
appendix annexed to it which is of considerable value, tbe move so as it contains 
all the botanical information we possess up to the present time about tbese regions. 
Wben Rak again took the field it was as assistant of Richardson in bis search 
after Franklin along the shore of the Continent in 1848—50. After a boatjourney 
from the Mackenzie to Coronation Gulf in the first summer the party wintered at 
Fort Contidence, and in 1849 Räe parted from Richardson and made another 
attempt to cross over to Wollaston Land. Indeed he did not succeed, but he was 
soon sent out again by the Company, and after wintering in Fort Contidence, set 
out in the spring of 1851. This time he was more successful and could make 
two journeys over to Victoria Land, one over the ice in the spring and another by 
boat in the summer. During the latter he made the first botanical collections 
broiight home from this part of the Archipelago. Once more we find Rae in the 
field searching for Franklin, and this time he again wintered at Repulse Bay and 
took an överland route in the spring of 1854. He now reached Boothia and Kiug 
Williams Land and brought home conclusive proofs of the disaster which bad 
overtaken the missing expedition. No separate works have been published about the 
låter journeys oi Rae, only short reports in Parliameutary Papers concerning the 
search, and no botany is contained in those, but from bis summervoyage over 
Dease Strait to Victoria Land in 1851 we have a collection which is treated by 
J. D. HooKER in the Journ. Linn. Soc. 1857. Here, indeed, the plants from Vic- 
toria Land and from the shore of the mainland are thrown together, so as to make 
the pubhcation of rather doubtful value. I think, bowever, that I may be able to 
make up for this omission in most cases, as i have found the specimens of Rae 
duly labelled in the Kew herbarium. 
The låter överland expeditions have brought home only very few further ma- 
terials for the botanical knowledge about the Arctic Archipelago, even if one of 
these travellers, Ohief Factor Anderson, made collections along Backs River in 
1855, and Hall in 1869 as well as Schwatka, Klutschak and Gilder ten years 
låter crossed over to King Williams Land. Klutschak during the summer of 1879 
collected a small number of plants the names of which are enumerated in bis book 
(Eskimo) after VVillkomm's identifications. For the botanical exploration of the 
Arctic Islands the Franklin search expeditions by sea have been of far greater 
importance. 
The endevours to carry relief to the missing expedition by the same way as 
it bad taken itself, viz., from Baffin Bay westward through Lancaster Sound, began 
in 1848, when James C. Ross after a visit to Danish Greenland and a difficult 
passage through Melville Bay reached Ponds Bay in Baffin Land at the end of 
August. He was, however, unfortunately stopped by impassable ice already at the 
northeastern extremity of North Somerset and bad to take up bis winterquarters at 
Port Leopold. As in 1849 the iceconditions were quite as bad as in the preceeding 
summer, he was obliged to turn back in the autumn. Geograpliical discoveries did 
