Vte FORftSt LAJSTbS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA, 



inadequacy of the views of Hutton and Count Saporta to 

 account for past changes of temperature. He states 

 that the theory which now meets with most acceptance is 

 that which attributes climatic changes to astronomical 

 causes, and especially to the eccentricity of the earth's 

 orbit a theory associated with the name of Dr Croll, of 

 the Geological Survey of Scotland. At the same time, in 

 regard to the facts in which we are here concerned, he 

 says : - 



' Besides the tale of intolerable cold brought home by 

 Arctic expeditions, which, in the concrete form of thick- 

 ribbed ice and perpetual snow, has hitherto effectually 

 barred their approach to the Pole, they seldom fail to 

 secure satisfactory evidence of the former existence of 

 more genial conditions in circumpolar lands. Pine trees 

 have been found prostrate on the site of their growth in 

 greatly higher latitudes than those in which they could 

 now exist, and these, from their still unfossilised condition, 

 give evidence of having lived and died within com- 

 paratively recent times. That much warmer conditions 

 prevailed at a still earlier time is evidenced by the fossil 

 plants found in some of the highest lands yet reached. 

 These include many evergreen shrubs, oaks, maples, 

 beeches, poplars, and walnuts ; while two species of vines 

 have been found fossil in Greenland ; sequoias, allied to 

 the mammoth trees of the Yosemite region of California 

 in Spitzbergen; with water lilies and the swamp-cypress 

 of the Southern United States in Grinnell Land, within 

 eight degrees of the Pole. Judged by its plant remains, 

 Greenland would appear to have possessed in miocene, or, 

 as many geologists are now inclined to believe, in eocene 

 times, "a climate as warm as that of New York or St. 

 Louis, and a vegetation richer than that of Southern 

 Europe at the present time, while the Pole itself, or at 

 least its near neighbourhood, would probably have com- 

 pared favourably in climate and vegetation with Scotland 

 of to-day. Geologists are agreed in regarding the presence 

 of such a flora as conclusive evidence of the former existence 



