340 
THE VOYAGE OB^ THE VB^GA. 
[chap. VII. 
within sight of the western to reach a height of 300 metres. 
Like the plains lying below, the summits of this range were 
nearly free of snow. Only on the hill-sides or in deep furrows 
excavated by the streams of melted snow, and in dales in the 
plains, were large white snow-fields to be seen. A low ice-foot 
still remained at most places along the shore. But no glacier 
rolled its bluish-white ice-masses down the mountain sides, and 
no inland lakes, no perpendicular cliffs, no high mountain 
summits, gave any natural beauty to the landscape, which was 
the most monotonous and the most desolate I have seen in the 
High North. 
As on the island off which we lay at anchor on the 11th 
August, the ground was everywhere burst asunder into more or 
less regular six-sided figures, the interior of which was usually 
bare of vegetation, while stunted flowering-plants, lichens and 
mosses, rose out of the cracks. At some few places, however, 
the ground was covered with a carpet of mosses, lichens, grasses 
and allied plants, resembling that which I previously found at 
Actinia Bay. Yet the flowering-plants were less numerous here, 
and the mosses more stunted and bearing fruit less abundantly. 
The lichen flora was also, according to Dr. Almquist’s examina¬ 
tion, monotonous, though very luxuriant. The plants were 
most abundant on the farthest extremity of the Cape. It 
almost appeared as if many of the plants of the Taimur country 
had attempted to migrate hence farther to the north, but meet¬ 
ing the sea, had stood still, unable to go farther and unwilling 
to turn. For here Dr. Kjelhnan found on a very limited area 
nearly all the plants of the region. The species which were 
distinctive of the vegetation here were the following : Saxifraga 
oppositifolia L., Fapaver midicauU L., Draba alpina L., 
Cerastmm alpinum L., Btellaria Edwardsii B. Be., Alsine 
macrocarpa Fenzl., Aira ccespitosa L., Gatabrosa algida (Sol.) Fr., 
and Alopemrus cdpmus Sm. The following plants occurred less 
frequently: Eritrichium villosvm Bunge, Saxifraga nivalis L., 
