A Brief Narrative of an Unsuccessful Attempt to Reach Repulse Bay in the Year 1824

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1825. Excerpt: ... BOTANICAL APPENDIX BY PROFESSOR HOOKER. The following list of plants is drawn up from the collection of Captain Lyon. That it is not more numerous will excite no astonishment, when it is considered how scanty were the opportunities of going on shore afforded to the Expeditidh; and that it includes but very few species which had not rewarded the researches of the former Arctic voyagers, will also be no matter of surprise, when it is known that the plants were all gathered upon a few low islands which were met with in, or near, the position assigned to Southampton Island; consequently, in a country, the direct vicinity of which had been so successfully explored by the Expedition immediately previous. The leaves of the oak which Captain Lyon found upon an iceberg near the centre of Hudson's Strait, must undoubtedly be considered as a very great curiosity, as well as the single leaf of the common Whortle-berry Vaccinium Myrtillus;) since they may be expected to throw some light upon the origin of these vast masses of ice. The former appear unquestionably to have belonged to one of the two species of the common European oak, either Quercus Robur or Q. sessiliflora; the latter to a plant very frequent in the northern parts of the old world, but not known to grow in the new continent, except perhaps on the west coast of North America. The arrangement here adopted is that of the Natural Orders, similar to what is followed by Mr. Brown in the Botanical Appendix to Captain Parry's first Voyage, and to mine in the Appendix to the second Voyage, (at present unpublished, ) of the same eminent navigator. As these appendices contain a more full synonymy, and remarks upon the greater number of plants which exist in this collection, and as they will be in the hands of th...