560 FARTHEST NORTH 



si(jn some days later Joliansen also chanced unwittingly 

 u])on the same place, and gathered fossils, which he 

 brought to me. Since my return home this collection of 

 vegetable fossils has been examined by Professor Na- 

 thorst, and it apj)ears that Mr. Jackson and Dr. Koetlitz 

 have here made an extremely interesting find. 



Professor Nathorst writes to mc; as follows; "In 

 spite of their very fragmentary condition the vegetable 

 fossils brought home by you are of great interest, as 

 they give us our first insight into the plant-world in 

 reirions north of the eiLihtieth degree of latitude durin;'- 

 the latter ))art of the Jurassic i)eriod. The m(jst common 

 are leaves of a fir-tree {Piuus) which resembles the l^iinis 

 Norih'uskidldi (J leer) found in the Jurassic strata of 

 Spilzbergen, liast Siberia, and Japan, but which ])roba- 

 bly belongs to a different species. There occur also 

 narrower leaves of another species, and furthermore 

 male flowers and fragments of a ]jine cone * with several 

 seeds (Pigs. 1-3), one of which (Pig. 1) suggests the 

 Piiiiis Maakiana (I leer) from the Jurassic strata of 

 Siberia. Among traces of other ])ine- trees may be 

 mentioned those of a broad-leaved laxilcs, resembling 

 Taxilcs i^raniiiiciis (I leer), sjjccially found in the Jurassic 

 strata of Spitzbergen and Siberia, which has leaves of 



* Leigh Smith liad already Ijnjiight Jjack from Spitzbergen a fossil 

 cone, which Carruthers classified as a I'inus ; but he regarded it as belong- 

 ing to the upper part of the cretaceous system. 



