3 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and the surrounding peninsulas. Quite a fossil forest is buried 

 under the ferruginous mass of Mount Atanekerdluk, a peak which 

 rises to a height of over a thousand feet over against Disco, and 

 which is now surrounded by glaciers on all sides. From these de- 

 posits Whymper, Nordenskjold, and others have extracted one hun- 

 dred and sixty-nine species of plants, of which about three fourths 

 were shrubs and trees, some with stems as thick as a man's body. 

 Altogether there have been discovered in the Greenland strata as 

 many as six hundred and thirteen species of fossil plants. The 

 most prevalent tree is a Sequoia, closely resembling the Oregon 

 and Calif ornian giants of the present epoch. Associated with this 

 conifer were beeches, oaks, evergreen oaks, elms, hazel-nuts, wal- 

 nuts, magnolias, and laurels ; and these forest trees were festooned 

 with the vine, ivy, and other creepers. A leaf of a Cycadea found 

 among these fossil remains is the largest ever seen ; and a true 

 palm, the Flabellaria, has been discovered among the remains of 

 these old arctic forests. 



To develop such a flora the climate of north Greenland must 

 at that time have been analogous to that at present enjoyed on the 

 shores of Lake Geneva, twenty-four degrees nearer to the equator. 

 According to the same gradation of temperature, the dry lands 

 about the north pole itself must at the same epoch have had their 

 forests of aspens and conifers. According to Oswald Heer, the 

 change that has taken place in the climate since then represents a 

 fall of 30° or 40° Fahr. for north Greenland. The interval between 

 these two ages was marked by the Glacial period, whose traces are 

 visible on the west coast. 



Although incomparably poorer than that of Miocene times, the 

 present flora of Greenland is sufficient to clothe extensive tracts 

 with a mantle of mosses, grasses, and brushwood. Wherever the 

 snows melt under the influence of the sun or of the warm east 

 winds, herbaceous and other lowly plants spring up even on the 

 exposed nunatdkher, and to a height of five thousand feet. 

 Owing to the uniform intensity of the solar heat, the summer flora 

 is almost identical on the low-lying coast-lands and highest mount- 

 ain-tops. True trees occur in the southern districts, where Egede 

 was said to have measured some nearly twenty feet high. But 

 the largest met by Rink during all his long rambles was a white 

 birch fourteen feet high growing amid the rocks near a Norse 

 ruin. Few trees, in fact, exceed five or six feet, while most of the 

 shrubs become trailing plants. Such are the service and alder, 

 which on the coast reach 65° north latitude ; the juniper, which ad- 

 vances to 67° ; and the dwarf birch, which ranges beyond 72°. 



In its general features the Greenland flora, comprising about 

 four hundred flowering plants and several hundred species of 

 lichens, greatly resembles that of Scandinavia. Hooker and Dr. 



