78 ON THE TERTIARY FLORA OF THE ARCTIC REGION. 
gathered in the Taimyr country, on the banks of the Taimyr, lat. 75° 
N., and close to the skeleton of a mammoth, and of which he also for- 
warded a specimen to me for examination, was neither petrified nor 
bituminous, but of a light grey colour, and not quite so heavy as wood 
that has been some time in water, and has thus lost part of its specific 
gravity. I could distinguish two species; the structure of the one 
showed an unmistakable resemblance to the Larch (Larix Europea), 
which cannot be distinguished structurally from Larix Sibirica, and 
may therefore be derived from Larix Sibirica, widely diffused over Bi- 
beria, between lat. 67° and 68? N., though not as far as lat. 75° N. 
The other species exhibited the type of the genus Dies (that of Pinus 
Abies, or the Siberian Pinus obovata and Pichta, both not extending 
beyond lat. 69? N.), and might therefore belong to one of the latter 
species, but that could not be said with certainty. However, the oc- 
currence of fossil and bituminous woods in these high latitudes is, 
according to M. von Helmersen, a geological phenomenon of enormous — 
geographical extension. A similar statement has recently been made by — 
Chitrow in his description of the Jiganeck country, situatéd on both 
banks of the Lena, between lat. 65° and 73° N., and long. 127° and 
148° W.* M. von Brevern found in Kamtchatka, on the rivulets — 
Aiskowo and Tchaibucho, anthracite, and amongst it bituminous woods 
and amber, which C. E. von Mercklin, through M. von Helmersen’s 
instrumentality, was’ able to examine, and describe and figure in his 
celebrated work *Paleodendron Russicum,’ under the name of Cu- 
pressinozylon. Breverni. Fossil and bituminous woods are also met with 
in the islands called New Siberia, lat. 75? N.; and Pschenizyn found — 
in the island of Kotelnoi whole beds of petrified woods, and, if I re- 
member right, he also discovered there the so-called “ wooden hills"— 
enormous deposits, thirty fathoms high, composed of horizontal layers 
of sandstone with bituminous tree-stems, which at the top of these hills 
are erect, and may be seen from a distance of five versts. 
Impressions of leaves, so essential for a more exact determination 
of the formation, I have as yet not obtained from regions so far north, 
but I have them (1) from northern Greenland, near Anonak, about lat. — 
13° N. ; (2) from Iceland, lat. 65°; and (3) from the Alüksa Peninsula — 
s = adjacent Aleutian Islands, south of Behring Strait, about lat. : 
59° N. : 
* Extrait des Publicati d la DT a * Ax 242. i 
St. Petersb., 1859. ons de la Société Impériale Géographique de Russie, p. E 
