A Summer in Greenland. By A. C. Seward. (Cambridge University
Press. 7s. net.) Professor Seward obtained nearly a thousand fossil plants from the Greenland rocks for Cambridge and the British Museum besides lichens, mosses, liverworts, freshwater algae, and many flowering plants which are now in the Herbarium at Kew, but his botanical and geological informa- tion does not result in a solid or technical treatise, for it is tucked away in modest corners, and the greater part of the book is a vivid and sympathetic description of Greenland life and scenery. We learn that raw porpoise hide "combines a delicate taste of nuts and oysters.' And at Holsteinsborg, where social and business affairs are conducted with leisure and extreme decorum, Professor Seward recalls that he "danced in the open until midnight to the accompaniment of a concertina played with great skill by a Greenlander." People who think of Greenland as a bleak desert of rock and ice will be converted by the photographs of great clumps of orchids, harebells, armcas, dandelions and polygonum, and stretches of white tufted cotton grass. The many illustrations are not less remarkable than the text.
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