PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 77 



Drude has shown (p. 288) that all plant life could 

 not possibly have been destroyed in northern 

 countries. He maintains that the greater part of 

 the Arctic floral elements which unite Greenland 

 and Scandinavia must have survived the Glacial 

 period in these countries in sheltered localities. 

 Indeed, he justly remarks, where at the present 

 moment do we find such plantless wastes ? Green- 

 land, Franz- Josef Land, and Grinnell Land, situated 

 in high Arctic latitudes, all have a flora composed 

 of flowering plants and cryptograms. " I cannot 

 understand," he continues (p. 286), " why a flora, 

 possibly mixed with northern forms but in the main 

 points agreeing with our present floral elements, 

 should not have persisted throughout the Ice Age 

 even in the heart of Germany." "To my mind," 

 says Col. Feilden, the well-known Arctic traveller 

 (b, p. 51), "it seems indisputable that several plants 

 now confined to the polar area must have originated 

 there, and have outlived the period of greatest ice- 

 development in that region." The theory in favour of 

 a survival of the pre-glacial flora has been especially 

 strengthened by the late Mr. Ball (than whom 

 probably no botanist possessed a better knowledge 

 of Alpine plants), who was strongly in favour 

 of this view as far as the Alps are concerned. 

 "Is it credible," he says (p. 576), "that in the 

 short interval since the close of the Glacial period 

 hundreds of very distinct species and several genera 

 have been developed on the Alps, and, what is no less 



