1893.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 207 



of retreating glaciers, seem to place the point beyond any reasonable 

 doubt, especially when after careful survey, through the construction 

 and positions of the glaciers, there was the absolute certainty that 

 the plants could not have been deposited by lateral, medial or 

 terminal moraines, though they might have been by ground 

 moraines, — a circumstance which would settle Professor Meehan's 

 position affirmatively beyond dispute, since the ground moraines 

 are borne under the flowing ice rivers. Abundant vegetation was 

 also found in nunataks, — peaks of land projecting above the glaciers 

 or ice cap, — but little significance was placed on this circumstance 

 since all such nunataks visited were within a reasonably close 

 proximity to the main land masses, and the vegetation might readily 

 have sprung from seeds blown there by the winds or brought by mud 

 on the feet of birds. But the demonstration of aged living plants 

 in the other situations named must have a strong bearing on the 

 discussions involved as to the influence of the ice age on the distribu- 

 tion of plants over the surface of the earth. 



The abundance of lichens is characteristic of the flora of Green- 

 land. Rocks supposed from a distance to be naturally colored are 

 found on closer inspection to derive their hue from a complete 

 investiture of some lichen. In this particular the crimson cliffs, 

 beginning at Cape York and extending many miles northward, are 

 a conspicuous example. These cliffs, rising sheer from the water's 

 edge to heights of from seventeen hundred to two thousand feet or 

 more, though of gray granite, show no spot of the intrinsic color even 

 on being nearly approached, but present a uniform red appearance 

 over their whole surface from a large orange red lichen which covers 

 them. 



In view of Schwendener's theory that lichens are but symbiotic 

 forms of algre and fungi, it is to be regretted that the probably rich 

 fields afforded by the latter named great families in this region 

 have yet to be investigated. 



Mosses are even more abundant than lichens. They grow in such 

 vast quantities in spots, that their light or dark greens are visible 

 often for some miles away, brightening the otherwise bleak shores 

 wonderfully. Their persistence in growth under apparently adverse 

 circumstances is also remarkable. No obstacle save the sea seems 

 sufficient to stop their progress. Even dead glaciers have been and 

 are being buried under the steady march of these cryptogamous 

 plants. Mosses fulfil the same duty in Greenland that other forms 



