312 The Scottish Naturalist. 



or order we might reasonably be led to look for, had it been 

 originally created where it is found. 



And this leads to the third and last of the three points with 

 which we set out — viz.: 



3. Whence and when was our alpine flora introduced, and 

 how distributed ? 



These, also, are questions more easily put than answered. It 

 is scarcely possible to answer them individually and categori- 

 cally, but we may consider them as a whole. 



We know from recent scientific investigation that great phy- 

 sical changes have at various times taken place on the surface 

 of our country, producing considerable alterations on its features 

 and on the comparative level of land and sea. According to 

 geologists, at a comparatively recent period, as- they reckon 

 time, nearly all our country and the northern half of Europe 

 were enveloped in a continuous ice-sheet similar to what may 

 be seen in Greenland at the present day, but its properties 

 greatly intensified on account of its vastly larger proportions. 



Greenland has a fringe of land at its sea-shores free from ice 

 and snow during its short summer season, which is covered with 

 an arctic vegetation sometimes of great beauty. Mr Chichester 

 Hart, in his ' Report on the Botany of the British Polar Expe- 

 dition of 1875-76,' says, " It is only on the low grounds of the 

 more southerly parts of Greenland visited, as at Egedesmonde, 

 Disco, Rittenbank, and Proven, that the surface is uniformly 

 covered with vegetation for any extent, and this consists of 

 small tufted perennials of low matted growth, through which the 

 arctic willows and Ericaceai trail and extend their branches, the 

 first alone rarely rising, under the shelter of a cliff, to a height of 

 three or four feet. Through this brownish-green carpet, which 

 is about the hue of an Irish mountain-bog, conspicuous and 

 beautiful blossoms of Rhododendron, Azalea, Diapensia, Pyrola, 

 and other ericaceous plants, are lavishly scattered, while the 

 cream-coloured Dryas, the snowy white Cerastium and Stellaria, 

 the pink Silene, and the gorgeous red-purple Saxifrage, often 

 form luxuriant sheets of colour, the latter being comparable 

 to our Scotch heather, though richer in its effects. True blue 

 flowers, as Veronica alpina, rarely occur; true reds are never met 

 with ; and most of all is felt the absence of a greensward, such 

 as the eyes are accustomed to at home." 



But the ice-sheet on our country at the period referred to 

 left no margin of land at the sea-shores where vegetation could 



