332 APPENDIX. No. XV. 



the large fronds of CardLopteris frondosa, being as well 

 grown in the Arctic as those from the Vosges and the south 

 of Iceland. 



Carboniferous Limestone. — Rocks of this age occur in 

 Feilden and Parry Peninsulas, on the north coast of Grinnell 

 Land, and extend as far west as Clements Markham Inlet, 

 att amino- a height of more than 2,000 feet at Mount Julia, 

 and probably to still greater height in the United States 

 Range, which corresponds in direction with the strike of the 

 beds, and probably continues in a south-westerly direction, 

 across the whole of the tract lying between the limestones of 

 this age in the synclinal of the Parry Archipelago. Amongst 

 the fossils of Feilden Peninsula may be mentioned Productus 

 mesolobus, P. costatus, Spirifer ovalis, S. duplicate^ Zaph- 

 rentis like Cylindrica. It is worthy of note that, had the 

 strike of the above limestones changed in direction northwards, 

 it would probably have been noticed by the sledge parties 

 that examined the coast east and west of this tract, and that, 

 assuming the same strike continues over the Polar area, a 

 prolongation of the trend of these limestones would pass 

 through Spitsbergen, where this formation has been recog- 

 nized, and contains some identical species. 



In the Carboniferous Limestones occur a group of cephalo- 

 poda, encrinites and corals, that, judging by their analogues 

 in the secondary rocks, would indicate a warm climate ; and 

 unless the corals, which all belong to the Palaeozoic types of 

 the Rngosa and Tabulata corals, had marvellous powers of 

 adaptation to different climates, they prove a more equable 

 climate in the world than exists at the present time, and 

 when taken with the fact that the plants of the ' Ursa stage • 

 of the Arctic regions lived before the deposition of the moun- 

 tain limestone in that area, and doubtless in other areas, 

 and reappeared in the coal measures overlying those limestones 

 in Europe and North America, the supposition that an equable 

 warm moist climate overspread a large surface of the globe 

 durino- the whole of the carboniferous era becomes something 

 stronger than even a working hypothesis. 



