Sir Henry H. Howorth—Geology of the Arctic Lands. 497 
nor to America, but are distinctly Circumpolar. Its 15 endemic 
plants consist of six species of Cureaw, three of Potentilla, Epilobium 
ambiguum, Arabis Breutelii, Campanula grénlandica, Calamagrostis 
hyperborea, Glyceria Langeana, Poa filipes. 
Of the specially European plants, most of which are only found 
in the extreme south of the island, Warming considers that a large 
proportion have found their way there since Glacial times either by 
ocean currents, by being carried by birds, and in other ways. It would 
seem most certain, in view of his very careful analysis of the problem, 
that Hooker’s original view can no longer be maintained and that 
Greenland cannot be treated as a section of the Scandinavian botanical 
province. Nor can we fairly treat it as a section of the North 
American botanical province either. On the contrary, it seems plain 
that it forms an integral part of what ought to be discriminated as 
a Pan-Arctic or Circumpolar botanical region. 
This raises some very important questions and notably those con- 
nected with the Ice-age. The notion that the flora of Greenland 
was virtually exterminated by the Ice-age and has found its way 
thither again since that period must go to the wall, as Warming 
emphatically urges, and we cannot avoid his conclusion, that the 
present flora of Greenland outlived the so-called Glacial age there. 
Warming says further that Greenland during the Ice-age clearly had 
ice-free land. The many Danish geological and geographical expedi- 
tions which during the last ten years have visited the country have 
mapped it and described its geology and botany, and have made it 
plain that in S. Greenland, above the height of two to three thousand 
metres there is no mountain top showing any signs of former ice 
action. This would include several isolated mountains along the 
west coast, as far north as 70° of N. Latitude and a large part of the 
uplands of 8. Greenland. Warming emphatically says there is no 
trace here of a general ice-covering, but only of local glaciers; it is 
here, he urges, that the plants we are discussing continued to live. 
Another similar vantage for them was in N.K. Greenland in the 
neighbourhood of Franz Josephs Fiord, where also there is evidence, 
that the land was not mantled with ice. Similar conditions also 
probably prevailed in Grinnell land, where Greeley, and about 
Discovery Bay in 82° 44’ North lat., where Nares found a com- 
paratively rich vegetation with several very local species. 
Warming further urges that the survival of the present fauna of 
Greenland from pre-Glacial times is also attested by the rarer plants. 
Putting aside South Greenland, where a considerable number of the 
plants may have been imported in post-Glacial times, the second 
German Polar Expedition found a number of plants in north-east 
Greenland such as Polemonium humile, Arabis petrea, Saxifraga 
Hirculus and Meraciifolia, Draba altaica, Ranunculus glacialis, etc., 
which are either not found elsewhere or in very few places. ‘It 
seems to me probable,” says Warming, “that most of these, probably 
all, are to be numbered among the Autochthones.” In north-west 
Greenland we find such rarities as Pleuropogon Sabinei and Hesperis 
Pallasti, which also probably outlived the ice period. Androsace 
DECADE III.—VOL. X.—NO, “XI. 32 
