462 HEILPRIN — REMARKS ON POLAR EXPEDITION. [Oct. 29, 



water areas in the far north is an exceedingly interesting one to the 

 geologist. I have given it a considerable amount of attention, but 

 have arrived at no absolute conclusion to which I should like to 

 commit myself at present. For some months past I have been 

 engaged in the preparation of a geological map of Arctica, more par- 

 ticularly with reference to the results obtained by recent explorations. 

 It is hardly necessary for me to state with what expectancy we are 

 looking forward to the publication of the minute geological details 

 which have been obtained by Dr. Nansen. 



As geologists, we have gone sufficiently far to be able to state cer- 

 tain facts. Perhaps the most important of these is the very strong 

 likelihood that, where we find to-day the deep ocean discovered by 

 Dr. Nansen in place of the shallow sea that was thought to exist in 

 the far north, its place was at a period not so very remote covered 

 by land, and instead of a polar sea we had once a polar con- 

 tinent. Dr. Nansen has given to us very conclusive evidence as to 

 the condition of Siberia at the not very remote period when in the 

 general temperate regions of the north we had glaciers running 

 down different mountain slopes, extending to the lower valleys, cut- 

 ting out the fjords and valleys in the Scandinavian peninsula, like 

 those which we to-day find in Greenland. Since that time, not 

 more perhaps than fifty, seventy, or a hundred thousand years 

 ago, the condition of the country has entirely changed, and changed 

 to such an extent as to have deceived the geologists into the belief 

 that there never was a glacial period toucliing the Siberian frontier. 

 The discovery made by Dr. Nansen, and still earlier that of the Rus- 

 sian traveler and geologist, Baron Von Toll, who seemingly found a 

 fragment of the old glacial ice existing to-day, and in addition the 

 remains of animals, such as the tiger and rhinoceros, in the de- 

 posits of the New Siberian Islands, speak conclusively of great 

 changes of climate and of oceanic configuration. 



One great pleasure I experienced on the comparatively small ven- 

 ture I made in the north was in searching in the deposits of 

 Atanekerdluk, Greenland, in approximately latitude 70° N., for the 

 remains of old foresters, the history of a forest of warm temperate 

 aspect, with trunks and leaves indicating a growth largely identical 

 with or similar to that found to-day in Japan, and in locali- 

 ties where the redwood grows in the United States, and where 

 we have poplars, elms, maples and oaks. The dimensions of the 

 trees measured perhaps a hundred feet or more in height ; to-day 



