Arctic Exploration. 291 



valuable minerals is not improbable. Masses of meteoric 

 iron have been recently discovered by the Swedish expedition, 

 extending for a distance of not less than 200 miles ; these 

 require further study, and to have their position determined. 

 Botany. — The vegetation of the Arctic regions, in the 

 opinion of Dr. Hooker, throws, great light upon the geogra- 

 phical distribution of plants on the surface of the globe. On 

 the return of Sir Edward Belcher's expedition from those 

 regions, a series of rocks collected in the neighbourhood of 

 Disco by his former fellow-voyager, Dr. Lyall, were placed in 

 Dr. Hooker's hands, containing an accumulation of fossil 

 leaves of plants totally different from any now growing in 

 that latitude. These fossils he forwarded to Professor O. 

 Heer, of Zurich, for investigation, who has brought forward 

 the most convincing proofs that that latitude was once inha- 

 bited by extensive forests, presenting fifty or sixty different 

 species of arborescent trees, most of them with deciduous 

 leaves, some 3 in. or 4 in. in diameter — the elm, pine, oak, 

 maple, plane, &c. ; and what was more remarkable still, evi- 

 dence of apparently evergreen trees, showing that these 

 regions must have had perennial light. It seems ex- 

 tremely probable that the vegetation which belonged to 

 the Miocene period extended over a large portion of the 

 northern Arctic regions. It would be of great interest to 

 ascertain whether such vegetation extends towards the Pole, 

 and there is nothing that would give greater assistance in 

 solving this problem than the proposed expedition alonsf 

 Smith Sound. Turning to the existing flora of Greenland, 

 Dr. Hooker has pointed out that, though one of the most 

 poverty-stricken on the globe, it is possessed of unusual 

 interest. It consists of some 300 kinds of flowering plants 

 (besides a very large number of mosses, algae, lichens, &c), 

 and presents the following peculiarities: — 1. The flowering 

 plants are almost without exception natives of the Scandi- 

 navian peninsula. 2. There is in the Greenland flora scarcely 



