Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/479

 445 THE EARLIEST EECORD OF ARCTIC PLANTS. By Theo. Holm. [The following paper, contributed by Mr. Theodore Holm to the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (x. 103-107, June 15th, 1896), is especially interesting at the present time; and as, from its place of publication, it is not likely to come under the notice of European botanists, we think it well to reproduce it in these pages. A comparison of Mr. Holm's paper with Martens' original shows that the determinations are very carefully done. — Ed. Journ. Bot.] Through the courtesy of Dr. Edw. L. Greene my attention has been called to the fact that our knowledge of the Arctic flora is not of recent date. The invaluable botanical library which Dr. Greene has accumulated, and which is now located in the Catholic University in Washington, D.C., contains a vast number of old books, which are truly a great boon to the working botanist. It was in this library that Dr. Greene showed me a short chapter in Ray's Historia Plantarmn,'^' wherein is enumerated and described some plants collected in Spitzbergen more than two hundred years ago. The chapter referred to is headed ''Plantse Spitzbergenses a Frederico Martens Hamburgensi in Itinerario suo observatsB delineatae et descriptse." When I examined the names ^^ Aloefolia jiorum capitulis rotundis,'' &c., and the accompanying descriptions, which latter might just as well have represented almost any plant outside the Arctic, I felt discouraged. The title of the chapter, however, gave the clue, i.e. the original record by Martens, who was said to have not only described these plants, but even to have figured them. This is the work which Ray mentions in a letter to Dr. Hans Sloane,f where he expresses his great admiration of the careful observations made by Martens. Martens' own account appeared in his famous little book Spitzhergische oder Groenlandische Reise Beschreibwig gethan imjahr 1671. | Martens was the surgeon of the ship 'Jonas im Wallfisch,' which got as far north as the 81st degree of latitude. From here he visited the north-western part of Spitz- bergen, from whence he brought home several specimens of animals and plants. Many of the observations in Martens' book show that he was possessed of unusual energy and skill as a scientific traveller. His voyage was made during a period when Spitzbergen was annually visited by a large number of whalers from various countries in Europe. So great was the traffic, that from 1670 to 1710 not less than 2289 ships visited this island, killing the vast number of nearly t Correspondence of John Ray, edited by Edwin Lankester, London, 1848, p. 474. { Hamburg, 1675.
 * Vol. iii., Appendix (1704), p. 226.