500 Sir Henry H. Howorth—Geology of the Arctic Lands. 
In regard to Greenland, Spitzbergen, Iceland, and the Arctic 
Archipelago of America, etc., it seems impossible to disconnect the 
increasing severity of their climate with the contemporary and 
correlative gradual elevation of these northern lands above the sea- 
level. The fact is familiar enough in regard to some of them, and 
I myself in almost the first scientific paper I ever wrote, and pub- 
lished in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (since 
reprinted in the Arctic Manual), adduced a great deal of evidence on 
the subject to show that the area of current elevation in the Northern 
Hemisphere is continuous. Wherever the coasts of the northern 
lands have been examined (except only the southern extremity of 
Greenland, where the reverse seems to prevail) there is evidence of 
stranded Whales, drift timber, and of raised beaches, showing the 
very recent and continuing rise of the land. 
This rise was necessarily concurrent with a corresponding altera- 
tion in climate, due to the accumulation of snow and ice above the 
snow line, the growth of glaciers and the dispersal of icebergs, and 
apart from the direct evidence already adduced it would have been 
possible and necessary to postulate such a change of climate, asa 
deduction from the fact of this recent elevation of the land alone. 
Here then we have a potent and efficient cause which is known to 
have been in active operation, and to which we can hardly fail to 
attribute the climatic changes above described. ‘To shortly state the 
general conclusions which I would press :— 
I. During the Pleistocene period the Arctic lands, instead of 
being overwhelmed by a glacial climate, were under comparatively 
mild conditions, and were the home of a widely spread and homo- 
geneous fauna and flora constituting, perhaps, the best defined life- 
province in the world. 
II. Since Pleistocene times the climate of these Arctic lands has 
been growing more and more severe, resulting in the extinction of 
a portion of their vegetable and animal inhabitants. 
III. While one portion of this Pan-Arctic fauna and flora still 
remains largely homogeneous, another portion has become differen- 
tiated by evolution in Northern America and Northern Europasia, 
into the Nearctic and Palearctic regions respectively. 
IV. The true and the only Glacial climate which we know to 
have prevailed in the Arctic lands was not during the so-called 
Glacial age of geologists, that is during the Pleistocene period, but 
is that which is now current, and which is the product largely, if 
not entirely, of changes of level in the earth’s crust which have 
occurred since Pleistocene times. 
These conclusions, if sustained, ought to throw some light on the 
problem of finding a rational explanation of the Glacial phenomena 
of the temperate zones, and notably of North-eastern America and 
North-western Europe. I may, perhaps, be allowed to discuss this 
on another occasion. 
T have to thank Mr. Howell for his very interesting letter, in 
which he supports my contention that there are no traces of former 
wide-spread ice-sheets in Iceland and only of local glaciers. 
