14. The vegetation was everywhere extremely scanty, crushed, not so much by the intensity of the cold as by its long continuance, and is far below the vegetation of Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Novaya Zemlya. It resembled, not indeed in species but in its general character, the vegetation of the Alps at an elevation of 9,000 or 10,000 feet, while the Alpine region corresponding to the vegetation of East Greenland lies a thousand feet lower. We found neither the stunted birches and willows, nor the numerous phænogamous plants of East Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Novaya Zemlya. The rare appearance of soil chiefly contributes to this extremely sparse vegetation, the detritus of the country resembling the meagre “dirt” layer on an old moraine, here and there enlivened by a small patch of green. Although we visited Franz-Josef Land at the season in which vegetation begins to stir, nowhere could there be seen a patch of sward, even a few feet square, to recall the features of our latitudes, although we examined depressions very favourably situated and free from snow. Some level spots showed patches of thin meagre grasses of _Catabrosa algida_ (Fries), a few specimens of _Saxifraga oppositifolia_ and of _Silene acaulis_, rarely _Cerastium alpinum_ or _Papaver nudicale_ (L.). Thick, cushion-like tufts of mosses were more frequently discovered. There were abundance of lichens: _Imbricaria stygia_ (Acharius), _Buellia stigmatea_ (Körber), _Gyrophora anthracina_ (Wulfen), _Cetraria nivalis_ (Acharius), _Usnea melaxantha_ (Acharius), _Bryopogon jubatus_ (Körber), _Rhizocarpon geographicum_ (Körber), _Sporastatia Morio_ (Körber)—and the _Umbilicaria arctica_ of winter, which we found in Greenland at an elevation of 7,000 feet. These specifications I owe to the kindness of Professor Fenzl, director of the Botanical Garden in Vienna, and of Professor Reichhardt. The museum of this institution accepted the small collection of plants I was able to bring to Europe. Of some of these there remained nothing but withered roots, so that it was impossible to determine their character. Nature in those regions, unable to deck herself with the colours of plants, produces an imposing effect by her rigid forms, and in summer by the glare of the ice and snow; and as there are lands which are stifled by the excess of Nature’s gifts and blessings, so as even to defy efforts of civilization, here in the high North another extreme is displayed—absolute barrenness and nakedness, which render it quite uninhabitable.