CHAP. XIII. FORMER MILD CLIMATE OF GREENLAND. 237 



suspecting that Scandinavia or Scotland or Wales were ever 

 in the same glacial condition as Greenland now is, we must 

 not imagine that the contemporaneous fauna and flora were 

 everywhere poor and stunted, or that they may not, especially 

 at the distance of a few hundred miles in a southward di 

 rection, have been very luxuriant. 



Another series of observations made by Captain Graah, 

 during a survey of Greenland between 1823 and 1829, and 

 by Dr. Pingel in 1830-32, adds not a little to the geological 

 interest of the ( outskirts,' in their bearing on glacial pheno 

 mena of ancient date. Those Danish investigators, with one 

 of whom, Dr. Pingel, I conversed at Copenhagen in 1834, 

 ascertained that the whole coast from lat. 60 to about 70 north 

 has been subsiding for the last four centuries, so that some 

 ancient piles driven into the beach to support the boats of the 

 settlers have been gradually submerged, and wooden build 

 ings have had to be repeatedly shifted farther inland.* 



In Norway and Sweden, instead of such a subsiding move 

 ment, the land is slowly rising ; but we have only to suppose 

 that formerly, when it was covered like Greenland with conti 

 nental ice, it sank at the rate of several feet in a century, 

 and we shall be able to explain why marine deposits are 

 found above the level of the sea, and why these generally 

 overlie polished and striated surfaces of rock. 



We know that Greenland was not always covered with 

 snow and ice, for when we examine the tertiary strata of 

 Disco Island (of the upper miocene period) we discover there 

 a multitude of fossil plants, which demonstrate that, like 

 many other parts of the arctic regions, it formerly enjoyed a 

 mild and genial climate. Among the fossils brought from 

 that island, lat. 70 K, Professor Heer has recognised 

 Sequoia Langsdorfii, a coniferous species which flourished 

 throughout a great part of Europe in the miocene period, 



* Principles of Geology, cli. xxx. 



