196 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



a small portion of the original collection, lost in the wreck 

 of the vessel by which they were being conveyed some 

 supplied from the isle of Kugu, near Sitka or New Arch- 

 angel others from Cook's Bay on the peninsula of Alaska, 

 58o and 59 of North latitude. The fossil plants of Iceland 

 have been principally collected by Professor Strenstrup of 

 Copenhagen ; they belong, like those of Alaska and of 

 the Mackenzie River, to localities situated beyond the 

 Polar Circle, bat too close to that limit to forbid that one 

 should seek to utilise them in a work of so comprehensive 

 a character. 



' With regard to the carboniferous flora of Bear Island, 

 Professor Heer has received, through the medium of the 

 Academy of St. Petersburg, rich collections of Siberian 

 fossil plants, some come from the Island Sakhalin, at the 

 mouth of the river Amour on the east coast of Manchooria ; 

 ethers are Jurassic plants from the Government of Irkutsk. 

 These are, it is true, stations situated well beyond the 

 Polar Circle, towards the 55th of North latitude, in nearly 

 the same parallel as Dantzic and Copenhagen, but the 

 ancient flora of them should contribute necessarily to 

 clear up vividly the history of Polar vegetation, properly 

 so called. 



c The two countries in the northern region which are the 

 most rich in fossil plants are Greenland and Spitzbergen. 

 The ancient vegetable wealth of these centres is indicated 

 by the numerous beds of coal which have been met with, 

 and have repeatedly been exploited, on the places which are 

 accessible ; they belong to many epochs, and consequently 

 they mark the repetition of the same phenomena through 

 an extent of successive ages. The characteristics of the 

 Polar land strikes forcibly the observer who seeks to exploit 

 them as a geologist; on the one hand the ground dis- 

 appears almost everywhere as one goes to a distance from 

 the coast, under a thick layer of ice, which limits access 

 to the interior to a few kilometres ; on the other hand, 

 the reefs, the declivities, the high beaches, and the precipi- 

 tous summits of the literal zone, wherever the action of 



