THE NEOZOIC AGES. 261 



and at an elevation of more than a thousand feet above 

 the sea. The plants occur abundantly in sandstone 

 and clay bedsj and the manner in which delicate leaves 

 and fruits are preserved shows that they have not been 

 far water-borne, a conclusion which is confirmed by 

 the occurrence of beds of lignite of considerable thick- 

 ness, and which are evidently peaty accumulations 

 containing trunks of trees. The collections made 

 have enabled Heer to catalogue 137 spefcies, all of 

 them of forms proper to temperate, or even warm 

 regions, and mostly American in character. As 

 many as forty-six of the species already referred to as 

 occurring at Bovey Tracey and CEningen occur also 

 in the Greenland beds. Among the plants are many 

 species of pines, some of them of large size ; and the 

 beeches, oaks, planes, poplars, maples, walnuts, limes, 

 magnolias, and vines are apparently as well repre- 

 sented as in the warm temperate zone of America at 

 the present day. This wonderful flora was not a 

 merely local phenomenon, for similar plants are found 

 in Spitzbergen in lat. 78* 56'. It is to be further 

 observed, that while the general characters of these 

 ancient Arctic plants imply a large amount of summer 

 heat and light, the evergreens equally imply a mild 

 winter. Further, though animal remains are not 

 found with these plants, it is probable that so rich a 

 supply of vegetable food was not unutilised, and that 

 we shall some time find that there was an Arctic fauna 

 corresponding to the Arctic flora. How such a 

 climate could exist in Greenland and Spitzbergen is 



