THE ARCTIC FAUNA. 169 



The fact that very extensive glaciers formerly 

 covered the mountains of Scandinavia on the eastern 

 side, whilst they scarcely reached the sea on the west 

 (Feilden, a, p. 721), seems to favour the view of a 

 warm current having washed the western shores. As 

 I shall attempt to show later on (p. 179), the Arctic 

 Ocean extended across Northern Russia at that time 

 from the White Sea to the Baltic that is to say, to 

 the eastern shores of Scandinavia, which country was 

 then joined to the north of Scotland. The predis- 

 posing agents to a copious snowfall existed in 

 Scandinavia, viz., an excessive evaporation of the 

 warm Atlantic waters and unusual precipitation in 

 the form of snow owing to the cold given off by 

 the Arctic waters on the east side of the mountains. 

 It is therefore probable that the land -connection 

 which united Europe and North America was farther 

 north than has been supposed. 



If we sail straight across from Northern Scandinavia 

 to Greenland, we traverse an exceedingly deep marine 

 basin ; but if we examine the sub-marine bank which 

 runs all along the coast of the former country from 

 south to north, we find that it does not end when the 

 extreme north of the land is reached. The bank 

 extends much farther north, and is continued as far 

 as Spitsbergen. As I have said before, the latter, 

 as well as Bear Island, must be looked upon as the 

 remains of a large mass of sunken land the ancient 

 Scandinavia stretching far into the Arctic Circle. Pro- 

 fessor Nathorst speaks of Spitsbergen as a northern 



