I pursued my way among the rocks in search of plants. I cannot compare the country I here walked over, to any thing or place. I know, which it so much resembles, as the summit of Ben Nevis; for, with the exception

giving the wearers a singularly wild and savage ap pearance. This dress is worn over their common clothes. The machines are of a simple structure; consisting of an upright stick, three or four feet high, and a smaller transverse bar, crossing this at the top, and turning on its centre: from this horizontal bar, hangs down at each extremity, a longer piece of wood, in such a manner as to form three sides of an oblong square. The annexed sketch conveys a sufficiently accurate idea of the whole. Two or three or more of these are placed near every fishing-house, so that, when the inhabitants return from fishing, with their wet dresses, they suspend them, by fitting them on the upper part of these machines, which turn about with the wind, in such a way that a current of air always passes through them.

of here and there a few patches of verdure, the whole was a mass of broken pieces of rock, not piled up in heaps, but forming a great plain, or, at most, only rising in a few hills, of a gentle and gradual ascent. Nearer the sea, some of these pieces of rock were covered with a little earth and grass, and in other places the interstices were frequently filled with Trichostomum canescens, among which grew many alpine plants, which again forcibly reminded me of the summit of our more elevated Scotch mountains, where the vegetation is by no means dissimilar. Among the most common lichens were Endocarpon tephroides, Lecidea geographica, a new Lecidea with a yellow granulated crust and brighter yellow shields, Cetraria islandica and nivalis, Parmelia scrobiculata, fuscolutea, and brunnea, Stereocaulon globiferum, and Bæomyces endivifolius, and vermicularis. I met with but few mosses, except such as are extremely common almost every where. There was one, however, that approached, in habit, Encalypta lanceolata, a sketch of which I happen now to have by me, and from this, on comparison, it appears

to have most affinity with Dicranum latifolium, but is probably different from both. Buxbaumia foliosa and Catharinea hercynica, were common on wetter grounds, and with them was an abundance of male specimens in fructification of Dr. Wahlenberg's Catharinea glabrata, which I did not distinguish from its neighbor of the same family till Mr. Bright the following summer brought home this plant with capsules, and I then recognised the new Lapland Moss I had often seen in Mr. Turner's Herbarium. Lychnis alpina was scarcely in flower; Saxifraga tricuspidata, Fl. Scandin. was in the same state. Cardamine petræa, Draba incana, and contorta, and a Stellaria, which appeared to agree with the description of groenlandica, were all plentiful. Silene acaulis and Cerastium alpinum were not yet in blossom. Juncus trifidus and biglumis were most abundant: the latter formed a considerable part of the herbage, intermixed with our more common grasses, and with Festuca vivipara. Late in the evening I returned to Reikevig, and slept for the last time on board the Margaret and Anne.

Thursday,
June 22.

This day was exceedingly cold and wet, and in the early part of it there was so thick a fog, that we could not see the town from our vessel. As soon as we had breakfasted, my luggage was conveyed on shore, and placed in Mr. Savigniac's house, where it was proposed, that, while we continued together, we should all meet at our meals; and where, with the addition of our ship-provisions to the good Icelandic mutton, fish, and scurvy-grass (Rumex acetosa and digynus), we fared exceedingly well. I had this morning a favorable opportunity of looking at the town, which consists of about sixty or seventy houses, standing in two rows, of nearly equal length, at right angles with one another, so as to form the annexed figure, supposing the base of it to front the sea, and the upper part to run into the country. Those houses next the bay I have before mentioned, as being all built of wood: they face the north, and look, at a little distance, not unlike a number of granaries. The merchants' houses are built exactly like the warehouses; that is to say, of wooden planks, covered with the same materials; and are only to be distinguished by

N.

W.

their having a few glass windows, and one or two wooden chimnies. These are all framed in Norway, then taken to pieces for stowage in the ship, and conveyed here. The warehouses are also shops, where the merchants retail cloth, earthenware, tin and iron utensils, sugar, coffee, tobacco, snuff, rye-flour, shoes, rum, in short, every necessary of life; and take, in exchange, for exportation, wool, tallow, fish, fish-oil, seal-oil, fox-skins, swanskins, eider-down, worsted stockings, mittens, and, sometimes, dried mutton. At the western corner of this row of shops are the stocks, or, what might rather be called, a pillory; for the culprit stands upon a block, and has his arms fixed in two holes, formed by iron clasps, on the side of an upright pole, at about four feet from the bottom. From near this instrument of punishment, two rows of houses run parallel for some hundred yards, in a south direction, and form a tolerably wide street; but so encumbered with pieces of rock, that, if there were such a thing as a cart in the country, I fear it could not proceed half a dozen yards even up this, the high street of the capital. At the commencement of the right hand side,