INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 157 



scrvid in Spitzbergen in positions wliich he I'oiild not reconcile with thoir coming from any other 

 quarter, must have come from that huid, and tliat it may t'orra part of a more extensive continent, 

 and the fact of all these special American species us well as the maj(jrity of the American species 

 which are found in other lands as well as America and Spitzbergen, occurring only on the north 

 coast of Spitzbergen, is a striking circumstance in favour of the possibility of the one country 

 having derived its species from the other. 



Let us now see what is to be said ah altera parte. The six test species found nowhere but in 

 Spitzbergen and Arctic-America, are Parrya arctica, Draba paitciflora (which Malmgren says, 

 although cited from the Taimyrland, is not found in the Old World) ; Draba micropetala, Arenaria 

 Rossii, PoA ABBREVtATA and Hierochloa paucifi.ora. Now, three of these, Arenaria Rossii' 

 Parrya ARcrricA, and Hierochloa flexuosa, are quoted by Dr. Hooker, as found in the north-east 

 of Asia as well as Ajuerica, although he does not seem to have been aware of the fact of their 

 being found in Sj^itzbergen. He may be wrong in giving these localities, but until the point is 

 cleared up, it is plain that these three cannot be received as only found in America and Sjjitz- 

 bergen. Next, while Malmgren reckons Draba micropetala, Draba pauciflora, and Poa abbreviata, 

 as distinct species. Hooker records them as mere synonymes (not even as varieties) of Scandinavian 

 species, the two former of Draba alpina, and the latter of Poa flexuosa. " Who shall decide when 

 doctors disagree ?" It is, however, to be remembered, that a distinct variety found in two places 

 should carry nearly the same significance as to its common derivation as a distinct species 

 does. If these three are struck out, there remain none of the special species to countenance the 

 supposed relationship between America and Spitzbergen. Or if a composition is struck by "di- 

 viding the difference," we shall then have something like the proportion which I have pointed as 

 the probable amount received by Australia from India, by flotsam and jetsam, not quite two 

 per cent. 



Reverting to the Greenland and Spitzbergen Reindeer, let us see if their claim of kindred to the 

 Barren-Ground Caribou stands on any better foundation. 



The figures of the horn show us that those of the Greenland and Spitzbergen Deer certainly 

 resemble the North American species more than any of the rest, and furnish a fair ground for 

 speculating on a derivation from America; and if the reader will allow me, I shall state the 

 speculation on this point a little more in detail than I could well do in discussing the general 

 question of a miocene Atlantis. 



1. The Reindeer camo into existence at the glacial epoch. 



2. Europe on the retreat of the ice being very nearly wholly without life, and North America 

 entirely so except at her south - western corner, it is probable that the Reindeer, and those 

 boreal species which are widely distributed in Asia and Europe, drew their origin from Asia. 



3. The Siberian form of Reindeer I suppose to be the primitive type, at least the oldest of those 

 we know. It is half-way between tlic European and the American, which is what we might expect 

 if it gave off these types, one to the right and the other to the left. 



4. The type which established itself in Europe in the early days after the glacial epoch was the 

 Lapland form, as is shown by the fossil horn from Norfolk, which bears only such trifling deviations 

 from the normal Lapland type as might be expected in the same animal inliabiting the same district, 

 at some distance of geological time. 



5. I have already explained, in speaking of the miocene Atlantis, the distribution of land and sea 

 which I supposed to have existed at the close of the glacial epoch. So far as it concerns us here, I 



