A SUBTROPICAL GREENLAND 31 



Thomas Hardy in The Return of the Native 

 speaks of Clym Yeobright walking alone on the 

 heath 'when the past seized upon him with its 

 shadowy hand, and held him there to listen to its 

 tale. His imagination would then people the spot 

 with its ancient inhabitants.' Similarly the waifs 

 and strays from the vegetations of the past enable 

 us with a certain degree of accuracy to reclothe the 

 hills with plants of other days and other climes. 

 It is impossible with precision to interpret in 

 degrees of temperature what the buried leaves and 

 twigs indicate; but we may safely say that they 

 belong to plants which could not have existed 

 under conditions comparable to those endured by 

 the present Arctic vegetation. One of the most 

 convincing and impressive arguments in support 

 of the prevalence of an almost, if not quite, tropical 

 climate in Greenland during the Cretaceous epoch 

 is furnished by portions of large leaves and pieces 

 of the fruit of a Breadfruit tree discovered by 

 members of a Swedish expedition in 1883 on the 

 coast of Disko Island and described by the late 

 Professor Nathorst, who was well known as an 

 Arctic explorer and an exceptionally able student 

 of the floras of the past. The Breadfruit, Artocarpus 

 incisa, which the Greenland fossil closely resembles, 

 is cultivated practically all over the tropics and is 

 native in some of the Pacific Islands. The fossil 

 Artocarpus was found at Ujaragsugssuk (Map B, 

 U), on the shores of the Vaigat, a place at which 

 we failed to find any good specimens of fossil 

 plants. It is interesting to note that species of 



