144 The Ottawa Naturalist. [November 



glacier-capped islands in 8i deg. 38 min. N. lat. and 63 deg. 

 E. long., numbers of that scarce and weird bird appeared. Its 

 beautiful rose-coloured breast, wedge shaped tail, and airy flight, 

 make it, as Nansen tells us, " the most beautiful of all the animal 

 forms of the frozen regions." Though too late to find its nest or 

 eggs there appeared no doubt that its breeding grounds were in 

 that area. 



Lastly, some results are published of great value in a geolog- 

 ical and palseontological sense. The second and third papers in 

 the volume are by Dr. Pompeckj, Professor Nathorst and Dr. 

 Nansen; they deal with the stratigraphy and fossils of Cape Flora 

 and the adjacent territory, and of Franz Josef Land. Dr. Nansen 

 treats of the geological structure of Cape Flora, while the fossils 

 obtained there in the Jurassic sedimentary rocks are described by 

 Dr. Pompeckj, who determined twenty-six species of animal forms 

 in the collection — a less extensive list than that made by the 

 Jackson-Harmsworth expedition. Both collections go to estab- 

 lish close affinity with the Jurassic of Central Europe, and invali- 

 date Neumayer's scheme of climatic zones in the Jurassic period. 

 Dr. Nathorst's report on the palaeophytology of Cape Flora is valu- 

 able, a.s the fossil plants he describes from Cape Flora are re- 

 legated to the Upper Jurassic, and to an earlier horizen than the 

 Wealden, which in his view is not Cretaceous but Jurassic. Fine 

 plates accompany these papers. 



Most readers of Nansen's simple but thrilling story "Farthest 

 North," had their attention rivetted upon the mammals, few in 

 species, which make their home in these fields of eternal ice. 

 Foxes were found by Nansen and Johansen further north than 

 any other air-breathing animals. It was in 86 deg. N. latitude on 

 April 25th 1895, very little south of their most northerly point 

 (which was 86 deg. 14 min. N. and about 95 deg. E. longitude); 

 and their astonishment may be imagined when they observed the 

 foot-prints of two foxes in these remote Arctic snows apparently 

 untrodden by any other living thing. These foxes probably sub- 

 sist on small Crustacea, which they must dip out of the shallow 

 watery lanes between the rugged ice-ridges. They shot a large 

 bearded seal in 82 deg. N. latitude, and a little further south killed 

 three polar bears. It appears as though animal life (so far as 



