12-4 REVIEWS. 



Lapland ; its general paucity, as well as its poverty in pecul- 

 iar species ; the rarity of American species there ; the few- 

 ness of temperate plants in temperate Greenland ; and the 

 presence of a few of the rarest Greenland and Scandinavian 

 species in enormously remote alpine localities of west America 

 and the United States. Our author reasons thus : " If it be 

 granted that the polar area was once occupied by the Scandi- 

 navian flora, and that the cold of the glacial epoch did drive 

 this vegetation southwards, it is evident that the Greenland 

 individuals, from being confined to a peninsula, would have 

 been exposed to very different conditions from those of the 

 great continents. In Greenland many species would, as it 

 were, be driven into the sea, that is, exterminated ; and the 

 survivors would be confined to the southern portion of the 

 peninsula, and, not being there brought into competition with 

 other types, there could be no struggle for life amongst their 

 progeny, and, consequently, no selection of better adapted 

 varieties. On the return of heat, survivors would simply 

 travel northwards, unaccompanied by the plants of any other 

 country." 



The rustic denizens of Greenland, huddled upon the point 

 of the peninsula during the long glacial cold, have never en- 

 joyed the advantages of foreign travel ; those of the adjacent 

 continents on either side have "seen the world," and gained 

 much improvement and diversity thereby. Considering the 

 present frigid climate of Greenland, the isotherm of 32° just 

 impinging upon its southern point, its moderate summer and 

 low autumnal temperature, we should rather have supposed 

 the complete extermination of the Greenland ante-glacial 

 flora ; and have referred the Scandinavian character of the 

 existing flora (all but eleven of the 207 arctic s]3ecies, and 

 almost all those of temperate Greenland, being European 

 plants) directly to subsequent immigration from the eastern 

 continent. Several geographical considerations, and the course 

 of the currents, which Dr. Hooker brings to view on p. 270, 

 would go far towards explaining why Greenland should have 

 been re-peopled from the Old rather than from the New 

 World ; while the list (on pp. 272, 273) of upwards of 230 



