VOYAGE TO THE 
of whom I am indebted for my earliest connexion with the voyages of 
Northern Discovery. 
The northern and eastern shores of Port Clarence slope from the 
mountains to the sea, and are occasionally terminated by cliiFs composed 
of fine and talcy mica slate, intersected by veins of calcareous spar of a 
pearly lustre, mixed with gray quartz. The soil is covered with a thick 
coating of moss, among which there is a very limited flora : the valleys 
and hollows are filled with dwarf willow and birch. The country is 
swampy and full of ruts ; and vegetation on the whole, even on the 
north side of the harbour, which had a southern aspect, was more back- 
ward than in Kotzebue Sound ; still we found here three species of 
plants we had not seen before. Plants that were going to seed when we 
left that island were here only just in full flower, and berries that were 
there over ripe were here scarcely fit to be eaten. On the northern side 
of Grantley Harbour, Mr. Collie found a bed of purple primulas, ane- 
mones, and dodecatheons, in full and fresh blossom, amidst a covering of 
snow that had fallen the preceding night. 
The southern side of Port Clarence is a low diluvial formation, 
covered with grass, and intersected by narrow channels and lakes ; it 
projects from a range of cliffs which appear to have been once upon the 
coast, and sweeping round, terminates in a low shingly point (Point 
Spencer). In one place this point is so narrow and low, that in a heavy 
gale of wind, the sea must almost inundate it ; to the northward, how- 
ever, it becomes wider and higher, and, by the remains of some yourts 
upon it, has at one time been the residence of Esquimaux. Like the 
land just described, it is intersected with lakes, some of which rise and 
fall with the tide, and is covered, though scantily, ufith a coarse grass, 
elymiis, among which we found a species of artemesia, probably new. 
Near Point Spencer the beach has been forced up by some extraordinary 
pressure into ridges, of which the outer one, ten or twelve feet above 
the sea, is the highest. Upon and about these ridges there is a great 
quantity of drift timber, but more on the inner side of the point than 
on the outer. Some has been deposited upon the point before the 
ridges of sand were formed, and is now mouldering away with the effect 
of time, while other logs are less decayed, and that which is lodged on 
