* 
ON THE TERTIARY FLORA OF THE ARCTIC REGION. 19 
I. In Greenland there are, as far as lat. 71? 30 and 73° N., even at 
a height of 2000 feet, very extensive coal-beds with carbonized and 
flat-pressed trunks of Cupressinee and Abietinea, 2—3 feet in diameter ; 
in some places, as at Harsonec on Hare Island, they are mixed with 
amber-like resin, and have been described by Mr. Vaupell as Pinites 
Rinkianus.* According to Mr. Rink, the most remarkable are the 
so-called arborescent coals, which the ice descending from the heights 
of the country as far as Assakak (lat. 71? N.) in the Omenaks Fjord, 
conceals close below its surface. Mr. Rink conjectures that these 
coals are broken off about a league from the coast, and at a height of 
3000 feet, by the glacier ice, and carried along by it; and that it is 
highly probable that the trees to which they belong, grew in that 
ocality and at one time formed a forest there. Of the coal-beds near 
Atanekerdluk (lat. 70? N., long. 52° W.), I saw impressions of leaves 
in a grey clay in Mr. Forchhammer’s collection at Copenhagen, ga- 
thered 1100 feet above the sea, and amongst them recognized Dom- 
beyopsis grandifolia, Unger, a widely-spread plant of the European 
Miocene formation, oceurring near Bonn, at Prevali in Carinthia, 
Bilin in Bohemia, and Leoben and Kainberg in Styria, at Oningen, 
in the Upper Bruche in Baden, at Lausanne, and in northern and 
southern Elge in Switzerland, and at Grimberg in northern, at 
Kreidelwitz, Striese, and Sehmarker in centralSilesia. I also saw in a 
yellowish spheerosiderite, having an extraordinary resemblance to that 
of Kamtchatka, Sequoia Langsdorfii, Heer, a plant so widely spread in 
the upper and lower Miocene rocks that it can hardly be regarded 
as anywhere wanting, as in Prussia, near Rauschen in Silesia, Salzhau- 
sen, Westerburg, and Dernbach in Nassau, Münzenberg near Rott, and 
Quigstein near Bonn, at Kaltennordheim in Thuringia, at Seisen near 
Beyreuth, in the Cracow district near Sworzowice, at Tallya near Tokay 
in Hungary, Wildhut, Koflach, and Zillsingsdorf in Austria, on the 
Rossberg and Eriz in Switzerland, at Oningen, and in the Arno valley 
in Sinigaglia in Italy. Quite recently it has been found in the Kirgis 
steppe (Abich); and it is probably also to be met with in N.W. 
America, in Vancouver Island (lat. 58° N.), whence Lequereux has 
described a not inconsiderable number of species, which place the ex- 
tension of the Miocene flora in those latitudes beyond doubt. The 
* ‘On de geographiske Beschaffenhed af de danske Handelsdistricten i Nordo- 
&nland," af H, Rink, p. 62. Copenhagen, 1852. 
