128 
president's address. 
up to that date to be found in Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroes, 
all round the Pole, he divides the west coast of Greenland into 
seven, and the east coast into three districts, and from these tables 
we learn that in District D, from C7° to 7 1° N. Lat., which may be 
regarded as the centre of the western coast, there are no less than 
252 species of flowering plants and vascular Cryptogams ; and even 
in the most northerly district of the west coast, from 7G° to 83° 
hi. Lat., there are 88 species ; and even at the most northern latitude 
which we know to have been visited lay civilised man, about 83° X., 
near Lockwood Island, there must be considerable vegetation, for* 
“ this camp proved prolific in animals, thus indicating a luxuriant 
vegetation near.” Ice-sheet then does not “destroy” phsenogamous 
vegetation. 
Second — Glaciation by Glaciers. Probably nowhere in the 
Northern Hemisphere is more severe glaciation of this kind to be 
met with than in Alaska. From Mount Elias descends to the 
Pacific Ocean the mighty group of glaciers, which at last unite in 
the t “ Malaspina Glacier.” It covers an area of 1500 square miles, 
and where it reaches the sea terminates in cliffs sometimes 300 feet 
in height; surrounded by it is “Blossom Island,” a Nunatak. The 
ice here surrounds a considerable area of fertile land, which is 
covered with dense forest, and beautified by a brilliant assemblage 
of flowering plants. In other places considerable vegetation is 
found upon the surface of moraines, which are probably still in 
motion with the underlying ice. 
Southward from the Malaspina, and descending from Mount 
Fairweather, is the “ Muir Glacier,” a charming account of which 
is given by its discoverer in the ‘Century Magazine’ of June, 1895. 
A broad, gently undulating prairie contains as much ice as (probably) 
all the 1100 Swiss glaciers ; it is fifty miles long, and just below the 
confluence of tributaries is twenty-five miles wide. Some of the 
ice remains buried for a century or more, as shown by the age of 
trees growing above it. The lower summits above the glacier are 
* Greely, ‘ Three Years of Arctic Service,’ vol. i. p. 330. 
f Bonney, ‘ Ice Work ’ (p. 08), and Wright, ‘ Man and the Glacial 
Period ’ (p. 30). 
