aspect. There were also a great
number of eider ducks flying about but they failed to procure a
specimen.

Singleton was equally successful in his scientific researches. He found
several beautifully green mosses, one species of which was studded with
pale-yellow flowers, and, in one place, where a stream trickled down the
steep sides of the cliffs, he discovered a flower-growth which was rich
in variety of colouring. Amid several kinds of tufted grasses were seen
growing a small purple flower and the white star of the chickweed. The
sight of all this richness of vegetation growing in a little spot close
beside the snow, and amid such cold Arctic scenery, would have delighted
a much less enthusiastic spirit than that of our young surgeon. He went
quite into raptures with it and stuffed his botanical box with mosses
and rocks until it could hold no more, and became a burden that cost him
a few sighs before he got back to the ship.

The rocks were found to consist chiefly of red sandstone. There was
also a good deal of greenstone and gneiss, and some of the spires of
these that shot up to a considerable height were particularly striking
and picturesque objects.

But the great sight of the day's excursion was that which unexpectedly
greeted their eyes on rounding a cape towards which they had been
walking for several hours. On passing this point they stopped with an
exclamation of amazement. Before them lay a scene such as the Arctic
regions alone can produce.

In front lay a vast reach of the strait, which at this place opened up
abruptly and stretched away northward laden with floes, and fields, and
hummocks, and bergs of every shade and size, to the horizon, where the
appearance of the sky indicated open water. Ponds of various sizes, and
sheets of water whose dimensions entitled them to be styled lakes,
spangled the white surface of the floes, and around these were sporting
innumerable flocks of wild fowl, many of which, being pure white,
glanced like snow-flakes in the sunshine. Far off to the west the ice
came down with heavy uniformity to the water's edge. On the right there
was an array of cliffs whose frowning grandeur filled them with awe.
They varied from twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height, and some of
the precipices descended sheer down seven or eight hundred feet into the
sea, over which they cast a dark shadow.

Just at the feet of our young discoverers, for such we may truly call
them,