Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/444



June 23d.

A bright day, with the thermometer at 47°, and light wind from the south. I have been out with my young assistants collecting plants and lichens. The rocks are almost everywhere covered with the latter,—one variety, orange in color, grows in immense patches, and gives a cheerful hue to the rocks, while another, the tripe de roche, which is still more abundant, gives a mournful look to the stony slopes which it covers. I have brought in a fine assortment of flowers, and it seems as if the plants are now mostly in bloom. They have blossomed several days earlier than at Van Rensselaer Harbor in 1854. I have had a bouquet of them in my cabin for many days past, and from the banks of the little lake behind the Observatory I can always replenish it at will. *