252 * DISCUSSION OF THE DESTCCATIOX QUESTION. 



time widely distributed ; with these are present many other kinds of trees 

 indicating a Avarm climate, and this is not a condition of things peculiar to 

 the valley of the Rhone and to Provence ; the same is true of the vicinity of 

 Angers, of Paris, and of London. The Oligocene, with a few shades of differ- 

 ence, shows a continuation of the same conditions; even during the Miocene 

 epoch palms still exist in as high a northern latitude as the parallel of 40°; 

 Cinnamomiim and Camphora reach even as far as Dantzic. As to the Arctic 

 regions, we know, beyond the possibility of doubt, that they have not yet 

 [during the Miocene] become buried under the snow. Immense and heavy 

 forests cover them, wherever land exists, up to the vicinity of the pole itself. 

 However — and this is a point of importance — we are now far from the 

 entire climatic uniformity of the periods anterior to tlie Tertiary [egalite 

 climaterique absolue des epoques anterieures au tertiaire]. The palms stop 

 considerably short of the polar circle ; and, in fact, appear never to have 

 reached it at any period. Within that circle, through the whole extent of 

 the Arctic lands, trees with persistent leaves are still present; the larger 

 part of the Laurinccc, however, are absent. The forests at all points are 

 chiefly made up of the maple, plane, ash, birch, elm, linden, and oaks with 

 deciduous leaves. There is, however, a decided difference between the cli- 

 mate of the Arctic regions and that of Europe at the same period ; a lowering 

 of the winter temperature has taken place, although it has not yet become 

 very perceptible. The polar zone, during the period in question, has about 

 the same temperature as the present temperate zone. Frosts occur there, no 

 doubt; the preponderance of plints with deciduous leaves obliges us to admit 

 that; but the temperature of the cold season hardly reaches as low a point 

 as it does in Paris, at the present day. Perhaps the mountains have already, 

 over their highest portions, become covered with perpetual snow ; perhaps 

 already some glaciers have begun to exist, and to make their way from the 

 summits of the ranges into the lower vallej's. But the aspect of the country 

 is quite different from what it has since become ; life exists everywhere, and 

 it is by no means to be passed over in silence that we find iipon the soil, now 

 frozen, the larger portion of the forest trees, which are destined later to make 

 their way toward the south and occupy the northern hemisphere." * 



Following still farther the idens developed by Saporta, we learn that the 

 increased cold and the accumulation of snow and ice in the polar regions put 

 a sudden stop to the forest vegetation which grew and throve there during 



• 1. c, pp. 360, 361. 



