FOSSIL FLORAS OF ARCTIC REGIONS—NATHORST. 841 
In relation to the present problems, the Tertiary floras are un- 
doubtedly the most important, and for this reason I will enter into 
the subject in some detail. But the materials are so wonderfully rich 
that I shall have to restrict myself to giving some examples indicating 
the nature of the beds containing the Tertiary plants in Spitsbergen, 
Iceland, and Greenland. More especially, I shall recall that they are 
_ found at 79° of north latitude in Spitsbergen; on the east coast of 
Greenland between 74° and 75°, and on the west coast between 69° 
and 73°; at Lady Franklin Bay, in Grinnell Land (81° 42’’); in 
Ellesmere Land between 77° and 78°; on the River Mackenzie at 65°; 
in Alaska south of 60° (and therefore outside the Polar Circle); and, 
lastly, in the islands of New Siberia (75°). Iceland, it is true, is 
outside the Polar Circle, but nevertheless its Tertiary flora may be 
included in this consideration. 
The Tertiary formations of Spitsbergen, which have a thickness of 
perhaps 1,200 meters or thereabout, contain fossil plants and seams 
of coal, both in the upper and lower beds, though the middle portion 
is marine. As an example of the deposits with fossil plants from the 
base of this formation the shales called the ‘‘Taxodium Shales,”’ at 
Cape Staratschin, may be mentioned. These are fine-grained black 
soft shales, which form the roof of a small bed of coal. In the shales 
the leafy branches, the flowers, the seeds, and the ovuliferous scales 
of the Swamp Cypress (Taxodium distichum miocenum), the leafy 
branches of Sequoia Nordenskidldi Hr., and Librocedrus Sabiniana 
Hr., are particularly common.- There are also associated a large 
number of remains of graminex, cyperacee, several species of pines 
and firs, a Potamogeton, and the leaves of various dicotyledonous trees. 
Thus, as Heer has shown, one is dealing here with fresh-water 
sediments, in the neighborhood of which it is evident that the 
swamp cypresses have formed forests, as in the swamps in the 
southern portion of the United States to-day. This conclusion is also 
confirmed by the occurrence of the remains of rather numerous insects, 
among which there are a score of coleopterids, two of which are 
hydrophilous coleopterids (Hydrobius and Laccophilus). 
These beds with fossil plants, at the base of the Tertiary formations 
of Spitsbergen, are overlain by thick marine sediments. In their 
upper portion the latter show indications’ of a retreat of the ocean 
and a recurrence of fresh-water conditions. It is possible that the 
leaves found in the lower part of the higher horizon containing fossil 
plants have been transported from afar by a river, and deposited near 
its mouth, but as regards the upper portion deposition must have taken 
place in vast swamps, on which the majority of the plants actually 
lived. In these beds one notices thin seams of coal, a sveat 
quantity of leafy branches, and also cones of Sequoia Langsdorfit 
