I06 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



chased behind by the modern "Arctic Flora," and eventually 

 by the frost and snow of the Glacial Age." The causes which 

 led to the latter coincide with Sir Charles Lyell's views. 

 Woodward, in "The JManual of the MoUusca," under the head 

 "Land Shells, Canadian Region," states: "It is chiefly re- 

 " markable for the presence of a few European species which 

 " strengthen the evidence of a land passage across the North i 

 " Atlantic, having remained vmtil after the epoch of the exist- 

 '* ing animals and plants." Professor E. Forbes, the famous 

 Edinburgh Naturalist, referring to the Boreal Sea Shells com- 

 mon to Europe and North x\merica. out of 140 examined, 

 found more than half common to Europe. He adds : Many 

 of the species, it is believed, could only have extended their 

 range, so distantly by means of continuous lines of connecting 

 coast, now no longer existing. Sir John Richardson, speak- 

 ing of "The Cod and Turbot Tribe (common to both contin- 

 ents\ remarks: Most of "the Gadoidea" feed at the bottom, 

 so their great diffusion ought not to be attributed to migration 

 from their native haunts, it is probable they never wander 

 out of soundings into "the mid sea"; they seem analagous co 

 "the Owls," which tho' stationary birds, yet include a larger 

 proportion of species common to "the Old and New World," 

 than the migratory families. Again the celebrated traveler 

 and scientist, Humboldt, informs us "That the common 

 lieather (Calluna Vulgaris) of Ireland, Scotland, and "The 

 Urals" (a plant characteristic of the Moorland Zone) ; in the 

 Pliocene period spread to Iceland, Greenland and Newfound- 

 land, where it still grows the only heath indigenuous to the 

 New World. We mav feel inclined to reverse the migration 

 (that, however, is immaterial), a land passage existed, unless 

 v.'e accept the discredited doctrine of "Spontaneous Genera- 

 tion." The Botanists. Hooker and Brown, alluding to the 

 modern Flora of Greenland, arrived at the conclusion "that m 

 its general features it was essentially the same as that of the 

 Highlands of Northern Europe," and Professor Lesquereux 

 states that in the Carboniferous Age no less than "two-fifths" 

 of the American species were growing also in the carbonifer- 



