286 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



landers, and the races of Central and Eastern Asia. The question 

 arises, Where and when did this peculiar people originate ? That 

 no originating centre of the human species can have occurred 

 within the Arctic Circle, as at present constituted, is self-evident. 

 That the progenitors of the present inhabitants migrated within 

 any recognizable period of history, from southern and more genial 

 latitudes, is equally irreconcilable with ordinary reason, even if 

 their peculiar type did not render such hypothesis untenable. 

 Against the possibility of Greenland having been peopled from 

 Lapland or Finland, the evidence is so strong as to amount al- 

 most to a certainty. In the lirst place, the North Cape of Euro})e 

 is separated from Cape Farewell, in Greenland, by at least C9i 

 degrees of longitude. Again, the prevailing winds in th6se lati- 

 tudes are from the west, or from Greenland to Lapland ; and, 

 lastly, the Gulf Stream, in its north-easterly course, between Ice- 

 land and the coast of Norway, would naturally carry any frag- 

 ile craft from the north rather towards Nova Zembla than to 

 Greenland. He then proceeded to show that a temperate climate 

 prevailed in the Arctic regions during the miocene era, and proved 

 this by giving a list of the fossil plants which had been f()und in 

 Greenland, and submitted to Prof, lleer. These showed that, at 

 the time they lived within the Arctic Circle, a warmer climate 

 characterized that latitude than that now prevailing in Devon- 

 shire. From this, Capt. Hall deduced the conclusion that the mio- 

 cene was the epoch when man first made his appearance on the 

 earth. 



Sir John Lubbock said he had no doubt that ultimately man's 

 advent on the globe would be traced to the miocene epoch, l)ut he 

 diilered from the author in holding that man was to be found in 

 his original condition in the Devonshire bone caves, rather tiian 

 in the temperate fossil forests of the extreme North. The rein- 

 deer and the whale had always accompanied pre-historic man, 

 and he did not see why he should be less hapi^y than in more 

 temperate regions. 



PAUCITY OF ABORIGINAL MONUMENTS IN CANADA. 



Sir Duncan Gibb read a paper on this subject at the last meet- 

 ing of the British Association. Being familiar with the archaeologi- 

 cal discoveries in Canada, from long residence there, it seemed to 

 him there must be some reason why monuments of an aboriginal 

 character were wholly absent or exceedingly scarce. Humboldt 

 referred to one found in the Western Prairies, but now lost. The 

 author, in his inquiry, excluded small Indian remains, such as flint 

 implements, pottery, burying-grounds, etc., also mounds or bar- 

 rows. It referred to monuments of stone, built cither as dwell- 

 ings or temples, as met with in Central America. There were two 

 reasons, he said, why such remains were not found in Canada and 

 other northern nations; the fiist was the extreme cold and rigor 

 of such a climate as exists in Canada, with its six months of win- 

 ter. The ground covered with snow was unfavorable lor the ^jres- 



