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investigations confirmed this view, and the region is now so 
colored on the geologic map of Alaska 
ese facts mean, so far as former climatic conditions 
are concerned, that the climate of the Pacific coast of the North 
n Continent was at least, as far back as the Cretaceous 
— eee than that of the interior, and that the Cretaceous 
and Tertiary floras of the coastal region were almost as different 
from the contemporaneous floras of the interior as they are 
ay. 
Doubtless the cause was then, as it is today, the Japan current, 
which bears a similar relation to the Pacific Ocean that the Gulf 
Stream does to the Atlantic. It impinges on the coast of Alaska, 
as the Gulf Stream does in the British Isles and produces a similar 
climatic effect. The bulk of the territory of Alaska lies in about 
the latitude of Iceland and southern Greenland and the extreme 
southern portion in about that of Labrador; but this portion 
conditions, as indicated by the fossil ee were even more 
pronounced in the past than they are now. In the Tertiary 
factor in modifying the climate. In any event we can state 
ow, with certainty, that cycads and other tropical and semi- 
tropical plants existed in the coastal region of Alaska long after 
they had disappeared from the interior and the eastern part of 
the North American Continent 
Recently I have had another unexpected contribution of 
specimens which has a further bearing upon the matter of past 
climatic conditions on our Continent. 
The Canadian Geological Survey sent for identification a col- 
lection of fossil plant remains from Interglacial clays in the 
Kootenay Valley. It has always been assumed by geologists 
that the so-called Glacial Epoch of the Ice Age was not con- 
tinuous, but that it included several advances and recessions of 
the continental ice sheet, with mild interglacial epochs inter- 
vening. If these specimens have been correctly identified we 
