113 



How this post -glacial flora migrated into thc country is not 

 knoNvn for certain. A great many aiilhors have given Iheir opinion 

 on Ihis subjecl, as the Færoes, by reason of their geographical situa- 

 tion, i'orni, as it were, the first milestone on the road ironi Europe 

 to Greenland. Many ol" these authors assume that in post-glacial 

 linies Scotland, the Færoes, Iceland and perhaps East Greenland 

 were connected, and that the flora of the respective countries has 

 migrated mainly along this helt of land. Others set aside the idea 

 of this continuous stretch of land and content themselves with 

 pointing out the means by which piants generally migrate, viz. 

 wind, water and animals. 



It is the geologicai authors for the most part who maintain 

 the tlieory of the unity of the land; aniong these may be mentioned 

 E. Forbes^ and James Geikie^, and of non-geological authors 

 especially A. Blytt^. Others, again, sucli as Warming* and, as 

 regards the Færoes, Wille and Borge sen, have, mostly on bo- 

 tanical grounds (also Nathorst^, who, by the by, maintains the 

 tlieory of pre-glacial belt of land, but does not believe in a post- 

 glacial land-bridge) been of opinion, that the present flora may very 

 well have migrated across the sea. 



This is sucli a very complicated queslion — owing to the few 

 actual facts to which we can rcfer — that it cannot be definitely 

 solved at the present time. /, for my part, believe in the post-gla- 

 cial helt of land and in the following I shall endeavour to show 

 what, in my opinion, is in favour of this theory and against that 

 of immigration across the sea. 



The geologicai configuration of the north-western part of Scot- 

 land, the Færoes and Iceland, with their broken-oft" basalt beds, 

 clearly shows that they were formerly much larger, and their con- 

 formity shows that they are all from the same geological time and 

 the submarine ridges which occur between them indicate the direc- 



* E. Forbes: Mem. of the Geological Surve3' of Great Hritain, vol. I, 184(i. 

 ^ J. Geikie: Prehistoric Europe. 



^ Engler's bot. Jahrbiicher, Ud. 2, p. 39. 



* E. Warming: Gronlands Vegetation (Medd. om Grønland XII. 1888), p. 169. — 

 Grønlands Natur og Historie (N'idensk. Medd. fra den naturli. Forening i Kjobcn- 

 havn 1891), p. 290. 



•' A. G. Nathorst: Kritisehe Bemerkungen iiber die Geschiehte der N'egetalion 

 Gronlands (Engler's Botan. Jahrbiicher. 14. Bd. 1891), p. 213. — Fortsatta anmiirk- 

 ninger om den gronlandska vegetationens historia COfvers. af Kgl. Vetensk. .Akad. 

 Forhandl. 1891, Stockholm), p. 2;{0. 



li()l:iiiy of llu> l'ji'ioes. 8 



