UPON THE BRITISH FLORA. 



Cromer Forest-bed (Preglacial), but is not found in the British 

 Interglacial Deposits. During Neolithic times it seems to have 

 been one of our commonest trees. After the Neolithic Period it 

 disappeared from the South of England, and has only been 

 recently re-introduced, now it spreads itself from seedlings. Mr. 

 Clement Reid, from whom I am quoting, says it appears to be 

 unable to re-establish itself here, now Britain is separated from 

 the Continent. The inability of the Spruce-fir to re-establish 

 itself is also difficult to be accounted for. It is found in the 

 Cromer Forest-bed, but unknown in the later British Deposits. 

 There is nothing in the modern distribution of this fir to suggest 

 that it is unsuited for our present climate, although it does 

 not tend to spread from seedlings like Pinus sylvestris, and Pinus 

 maritima. 



I have already spoken of the probability of the preservation of 

 some of our plants and animals during the Glacial Age, and that 

 there was a survival of some portion of the Preglacial plants. 

 It is generally admitted that the ice-cap did not extend south of 

 London, and that there was an area left sufficient for the support 

 of a considerable number of Preglacial plants and animals. In 

 Switzerland a temperate flora is found in close connection with 

 glaciers. We may be led, therefore, to conclude that the climate 

 of the south of England during the Glacial Period did not 

 annihilate all previous life. Forbes thought that there was a 

 now sunken Atlantis, a continent which occupied a part of the 

 Atlantic basin in Miocene times. It is well ascertained that the 

 European and American floras were the same at that period, and 

 that their types continue still in America, but not in Europe. 

 Mr. Andrew Murray remarks that the bearing of these facts is in 

 favour of an Atlantis, but it is possible that a " north-west 

 passage " sufficient for the intercommunication of the two 

 continents may have existed, although not directly across the 

 Atlantic, and it may have been by Greenland. The climate at 

 the Poles at that time was genial, frost and snow were unknown ; 

 the south of Iceland, and several parts of the Arctic lands, such 

 as Disco Island Lat. 70 N., although now treeless, were densely 



