CHAP, in.] THE ME10CENE CLIMATE. 63 



they divide the flora with the deciduous trees. Palms, 

 fig-trees, and fine-leaved acacias abound in the lower, 

 while in the upper strata they are to a great extent 

 replaced by maples and poplars. The palms are found 

 throughout, but are more rare in the upper strata. The 

 greatest change, as we might expect, occurs at the time 

 when the sea rolled over part of Switzerland in the 

 middle, or Helvetian stage. 



The elaborate investigations of Professor Heer 

 show that the climate of middle Europe was in 

 the lower Meiocene stage similar to that now pre- 

 vailing in Louisiana, the Canaries, North Africa, and 

 South China, with a mean annual temperature of from 

 68 to 6 9 '8 Fahr. ; while that of the Upper Meiocenes 

 resembled that of Madeira, Malaga, Southern Sicily, 

 Southern Japan, and New Georgia, with a mean annual 

 temperature of 64 '4, 6 6 '2 Fahr. 



While the climate was warm in the region south of 

 the Baltic, it was temperate in Iceland, where the flora 

 consists of species capable of living under temperate 

 conditions. The same remark holds good with regard 

 to the Meiocene plants of Spitzbergen, in which we do 

 not find any tree or shrub with evergreen foliage. It 

 also holds good for that of the western coast of North 

 Greenland, in 70 north latitude, where magnolias, 

 chestnuts, oaks, planes, and vines, indicate "a climate 

 analogous to that now characteristic of the lake of 

 Geneva." 



These conclusions as to the nature of the climate 1 in 



1 Heer, Primeval World of Switzerland, ii. 147. We must note that 

 the Polar vegetation taken by Heer to be Meiocene is considered by 

 Dawson and Starkie Gardner, Eocene. This question is discussed in the 

 second chapter of this work. 



