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He did not return last night but Dr. Hayes
and Mr. Ohlsen who were sent after him
with the dog sledge - found the hardy
savage fast asleep - not five miles from the
brig - Alongside of him was a large Seal
shot as usual in the head. He had dragged
it for seven hours over the Ice foot.

The ice breaks up slowly. Hans reports
the open water as extending beyond the Esqui-
maux huts - between them and Godsend ridge
with a slight bend to the nd[northward].

[Margin] Sunday
June 11

Another walk on shore showed me the
Andromeda in flower - the saxafrages and
carices green beneath the dried tufts of last
year. This rapidly maturing vegetation is
of curious interest in the case of the Andromeda
Tetragona the plant had advanced rapidly
towards putrification without a corresponding
development of other parts. The stalks and
leaflets ( ) were dry and instead
of the graceful growths which characterised the
heaths. It presented a low scrubby sod - or turf
studded with flowers. The localities from which
these were taken were well infiltrated with mel-
ted snows retained by the dead mosses. The
rocks too so enclosed them as to aid by rever-
beration the solar heat.

Few of us at home can realise the
protection of this warm coverlid of snow. No Eider
down in the cradle of an infant is tucked in
more kindly than these creeping anemones or
the late seasoned ranunculi by their snowy
covering. The first warm snows of Aug & Sept:
falling upon a thickly pleached carpet of carices
(grasses) Ericas (heaths) and willows- (salices-)
invests the hoary growths which nestle around them
with a non conducting air chamber and as
each successive snow increases the thickness of