Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/61

55 JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO N. W. AMERICA. 55 similar pursuits. In him I enjoyed the society of an old friend & zealous botanical associate. During our voyage from London to Madeira where we arrived on the 10 of August, nothing [of] any interest oc- curred to attract the attention of the naturalist. The weather was delightfull & my time was occupied in exam- ining the luminous appearance exhibited by the ocean & in making those arrangements which my new mode of life required. During our short passage the only bird we saw was the Proullaria Pelageia. On the 9 August we saw the island of Porto Santo, but the weather was so calm that it was the evening of the 10th before we came to an- chor of [f] Funchal. In the morning impatient to make the most of our time & in company with Mr. Douglass, I proceeded to the in- terior of the island. Although we had no difficulty in filling our vascula with plants and procured a few insects & lizards, the results of our journey did not satisfy our sanguine expectations. The phenogamous plants we pro- cured were sufficiently well known, we did not obtain a single moss or see a species of pinger-sucunia [?]. In the more alpine regions the plants are nearly the same as those that grow in the hills of Scotland as the Pteris aqu- lina L. and Genista scoparia L. To give any description of an island so well known as Madeira would be super- fluous & to acquire a knowledge of its vegetable produc- tions in a single day is impossible. Madeira consists of steap hills of rapid, abrupt ascent, intersected by numer- ous deap ravines and vallies generally watered by some small rivulet, that derives its water from the melting of the snow of the more elevated hills. The rocks are of a black colour inclining to blue & many of them are in a state of decomposition and afford a favourable soil for the cultivation of the vine. The rocks as far as I could judge appear to be of volcanic origin & in the progress of our