210 THE GENESIS AND MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS 



coal formation, the floras of the Lower Carboniferous (Sub- 

 carboniferous of some American geologists) and the Millstone 

 Grit, and in a report upon these 1 similar deductions were ex- 

 pressed. It was stated that in Newfoundland and Northern 

 Cape Breton the coal formation species come in at an early 

 part of that period, and as we proceed southward they belong 

 to progressively newer portions of the Carboniferous system. 

 The same fact is observed in the coal beds of Scotland, as 

 compared with those of England, and it indicates that the 

 coal formation flora, like that of the Devonian, spread itself 

 from the north, and this accords with the somewhat extensive 

 occurrence of Lower Carboniferous rocks and fossils in the 

 Parry Islands and elsewhere in the Arctic regions. 2 



Passing over the comparatively poor flora of the earlier 

 Mesozoic, consisting largely of cycads, pines, and ferns, which, 

 as we have seen, is probably of southern origin, and is as yet 

 little known in the arctic, though represented, according to 

 Heer, by the supposed Jurassic flora of Cape Boheman, we 

 find, especially at Kome' and Atane in Greenland, an interest- 

 ing occurrence of those earliest precursors of the truly modern 

 forms of plants which appear in the Cretaceous, the period of 

 the English chalk, and of the New Jersey greensands. There 

 are two plant groups of this age in Greenland, one, that of 

 Kom consists almost entirely of ferns, cycads, and pines, and is 

 of decidedly Mesozoic aspect. This was regarded by Heer as 

 Lower Cretaceous. The other, that of Atane", holds remains 

 of many modern temperate genera, as Populus, Myrica, Ficus, 

 Sassafras, and Magnolia. This he regards as Middle Creta- 

 ceous. Above this is the Patoot series, with many exogenous 

 trees of modern genera, and representing the Upper Creta- 

 ceous. Resting upon these Upper Cretaceous beds, without 



1 " Fossil Plants of Lower Carboniferous and Millstone Grit Formations 

 of Canada," pp. 47, 10 plates. Montreal, 1873. 



* G. M. Dawson, " Report on Arctic Regions of Canada." 



