f the sea, showing
that had the glaciation to which the island has been subjected been
slightly greater we should have found several islands here instead of
one.

At the time of our first visit, May 28, winter still had full
possession, but eleven days later we found the dwarf willows, drabas,
crizerons, saxifrages pushing up their buds and leaves, on spots bare
of snow, with wonderful rapidity. This was the beginning of spring at
the northwest end of the island. On July 4 the flora seemed to have
reached its highest development. The bottoms of the glacial valleys
were in many places covered with tall grasses and carices evenly
planted and forming meadows of considerable size, while the drier
portions and the sloping grounds about them were enlivened with
gay highly-colored flowers from an inch to nearly two feet in
height--_Aconitum Napellus_, L. var. _delphinifolium_ ser. _Polemonium
coeruleum_, L. _Papaver nudicaule_, _Draba alpina_, and _Silene
acaulis_ in large closely flowered tufts, Andromeda, Ledum Linnaea,
Cassiope, and several species of Vaccinium and Saxifraga.

_SAINT MICHAEL'S._

The region about Saint Michael's is a magnificent tundra, crowded with
Arctic lichens and mosses, which here develop under most favorable
conditions. In the spongy plush formed by the lower plants, in which
one sinks almost knee-deep at every step, there is a sparse growth of
grasses, carices, and rushes, tall enough to wave in the wind, while
empetrum, the dwarf birch, and the various heathworts flourish here in
all their beauty of bright leaves and flowers. The moss mantle for the
most part rests on a stratum of ice that never melts to any great
extent, and the ice on a bed rock of black vesicular lava. Ridges of
the lava rise here and there above the general level in rough masses,
affording ground for plants that like a drier soil. Numerous hollows
and watercourses also occur on the general tundra, whose well-drained
banks are decked with gay flowers in lavish abundance, and meadow
patches of grasses shoulder high, suggestive of regions much farther
south.

The following plants and a few doubtful species not yet determined were
collected here:

Linnaea borealis, Gronov.

Cassiope tetragone, Desv.

Andromeda polifolia, L.

Loiseleuria procumbeus, Desv.

Vaccinium Vitis Idaea, L.

Arctostaphylos alpina, Spring.

Ledum palustre, L.

Nardosmia frigida, Hook.

Saussurea alpina