The fossil plants of these ice-bound countries belong to the Miocene period, an epoch warmer than the present, which preceded the glacial age now triumphant there. The latitudes of Baffin Land were once covered by extensive forests representing fifty or sixty different species of arborescent trees, most of them with deciduous leaves, some three or four inches in diameter, the elm, pine, oak, maple, plane, and even some evergreens, showing an entirely different condition of seasons to that which now holds sway in the far, far north. The modern botany of the Arctics, comprising some 300 kinds of flowering plants, besides mosses, algae, lichens, fungi, is characteristic of the Scandinavian peninsula. Now, the Scandinavian flora is one of the oldest on the globe. It represents unique problems in distribution, from which the most tremendous scientific deductions have been drawn, such as those concerning a former disposition of terrestrial continents and oceans, and some concerning changes in the direction of the earth’s axis itself! All this is very far beyond the scope of any such account of Baffin Land as the present. Suffice it, nevertheless, to indicate the deep vistas of interest that lie behind the “appalling desolation” of its appearance to-day, and the limitations of its hyperborean native folk. The reindeer moss is a very important asset of the country. It is a delicate grey-green in colour and beautiful in form as well. It grows luxuriantly to about the height of six inches. When dry, it is brittle, and may be crumbled to powder in the hands; but when wet it is very much of the consistency of jelly, and very slippery. The reindeer live entirely upon it all the year round. In the winter, when it lies under a deep blanket of snow, to get at it the deer have to scrape their way down with their great splay hoofs. It sometimes happens that a season comes when a thaw may be followed by a sharp frost. In this case the surface of the snow is first melted and then quickly frozen, making a coating of ice over all the surface of the ground. To scrape this would cut the deers’ legs, so there is an exodus of the herd to other feeding places, and hunger even to famine and starvation may reign in the district they have deserted. Generally speaking, the herds keep to the high grounds and hills in the winter, because there the moss is more exposed and easier to come at. They move down to the coast at intervals, to lick the salt which comes up through the “sigjak,” i.e., ground ice, along the shore, when the tides rises and the water leaves pools behind it.