218 FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



evidently contemporaneous, have furnished together sixty- 

 five species, a considerable number, superior to that of the 

 greater number of the European local floras of the same 

 period. Nothing can be more curious to examine closely 

 than this collection of forms then reassembled in the 

 bosom of the same country in the neighbourhood of the 

 Pole. 



'Time has passed since the Jurassic ; and it has put its 

 impress on this new flora, and has led to many changes 

 from the anterior state of it ; but as changes have an 

 importance almost always proportional to the time passed, 

 and as the interval which stretches from the Bathonian, 

 probably the level of Cape Boheman, is infinitely less than 

 that which separates the plants of this last from those of 

 the lower carboniferous strata, it is quite a simple matter 

 to establish the less profound modifications in the nature 

 at least of the constituent elements of the Arctic vegeta- 

 tion in looking at it towards the commencement of the 

 chalk period. Ferns, cycads, and conifers, compose always 

 the principal groups; the ferns dominate in their entirety, 

 the conifers come next. The cycads hold only the third 

 rank in number, as well as in frequency of occurrence. 



' But we have established in this respect very sensible 

 local differences : the cycads scarcely show themselves, 

 excepting at Kome and Ekkorfat, and always associated 

 with ferns and with conifers ; whilst at Pattorfik there are 

 only ferns and conifers, and at Avkrusak these two groups 

 have only by the side of them some remains of cycads ; 

 the monocotyledons do not show themselves but in a 

 restricted number, and they have nothing conclusive about 

 them ; there were no palms as yet, as there were in 

 Europe at the same age, but probably screw-pines rather 

 ill-defined as yet in fine, with scarcely a single excep- 

 tion, no dicotyledons ; and that exception was special to 

 Pattorfik, where the beds with vegetable imprints occupied 

 the extreme base of the formation, which is all the more 

 curious. It constitutes of itself an occurrence of which I 

 shall, in a little, enquire into the exact significance.' 



