48 COL. FEILDEN AND ME. GELDART ON SPITSBERGEN PLANTS. 
The Rev. A. E. Eaton — a well-known naturalist and botanist, 
who, twenty years ago, did excellent work in Spitsbergen, when 
accompanying Mr. Leigh Smith — gave such excellent advice in 
a letter I received from him, prior to my leaving England this 
spring, that I do not hesitate to transcribe the following : “ In 
view of the likelihood of your visiting Wiide Bay (north coast 
of Spitsbergen), it may be useful to state that I began to learn 
there, chiefly, that rare plants are more likely to find shelter in 
such a country, on sunny patches of soil, tolerably high up on 
hill sides, or on cliffs, sheltered from the coldest winds, and on the 
upper parts of the talus of precipices, than on lower ground. 
It is well to mention that I did not work in Wiide Bay with this 
elementary principle in the art of collecting clearly before me.” 
But to carry out this excellent advice requires time and a large 
amount of physical exertion, for the mountain slopes of Spitsbergen 
are peculiarly steep ; and the ascent of a thousand feet, up the 
sliding, slipping slope of rocky talus is arduous work, and not 
to be undertaken lightly, when time is an all important object, 
and there is only a problematical chance of obtaining a prize at 
the top. 
A glance at the map will show that Advent Bay possesses 
a peculiarly favourable position ; it is one of the inlets that open 
out on the southern side of the great Ice Fiord, a noble indentation, 
penetrating the west island of Spitsbergen for sixty or seventy 
miles on its western side, and about mid-way between its southern 
and northern extremities. No land in the same latitude, in any 
portion of the Polar area, can be compared with the south side 
of Ice Fiord for fertility and plant-growth. This is due to the 
prolongation of the Warm Atlantic current which laves the western 
shore of Spitsbergen, fends off the Polar ice from Hakluyt’s 
Headland, and, sweeping along the north coast, opens up a water- 
way, at the close of nearly every summer, as far as the Seven 
Islands. Advent Bay has another physical peculiarity which is 
almost unique when compared with the other subsidiary indentations 
of Ice Fiord, namely, it has no discharging glacier ; nor has the 
long valley, which proceeds inland for many miles from the head 
of the present bay, any permanent ice in it, although massive 
moraines, formed under water, indicate that at no very distant time, 
when the land stood at a lower level, discharging glaciers occupied 
