s a good way _north of_ Behring's Straits,
while on the Chukch Peninsula wood appears to be wholly wanting.
Even at Port Clarence the coast is devoid of trees, but some
kilometres into the country alder bushes two feet high are met with,
and behind the coast hills actual forests probably occur. Vegetation
is besides already luxuriant at the coast, and far away here, on the
coast of the New World, many species are to be found nearly allied
to Scandinavian plants, among them the _Linnaea_. Dr. Kjellman
therefore reaped here a rich botanical harvest, valuable for the
purpose of comparison with the flora of the neighbouring portion of
Asia and other High Arctic regions.
[Illustration: ANIMAL FIGURE FROM AN ESKIMO GRAVE.
_a._ From above.
_b._ From the side (One-third of the natural size.) ]
[Illustration: ETHNOGRAPHICAL OBJECTS FROM PORT CLARENCE.
1-2. Wooden masks, found at a grave, one-sixth of the natural size.
3. Amulet a face with one eye of enamel, the other of pyrites from
a harpoon-float of sealskin, one-third.
4. Oars, one-nineteenth.
5. Boathook, one-twelfth.
6. The hook or carved ivory, one-fourth.
7. Carved knife handle (?) ofivory, one-half. ]
Dr. Almquist in like manner collected very extensive materials for
investigating the lichen-flora of the region, probably before very
incompletely known. The harvest of the zoologists, on the other
hand, was scanty. Notwithstanding the luxuriant vegetation
land-evertebrates appeared to occur in a much smaller number of
species than in northern Norway. Of beetles, for instance, only from
ten to twenty species could be found, mainly Harpalids and
Staphylinids, and of land and fresh-water mollusca only seven or
eight species, besides which nearly all occurred very sparingly.
Among remarkable fishes may be mentioned the same black marsh-fish
which we caught at Yinretlen. The avi-fauna was scanty for a high
northern land, and of wild mammalia we saw only musk-rats. Even the
dredgings in the harbour yielded, on account of the unfavourable
nature of the bottom, only an inconsiderable number of animals and
algae.
On the 26th July, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we weighed
anchor and steamed back in splendid weather and with for the most
part a favourable wind to the shore of the Old World. In order to
determine the salinity and temperature at different depths,
soundings were made and samples of water taken every four hours
during the passage across the
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