R. H. Scott — Fossil Flora of the Arctic Regions. 69 



America exactly the same succession as we have in Scotland and 

 Scandinavia. 



In the valleys of the White Mountains and in those of the Eocky 

 Mountains a number of terminal moraines mark the sites of local 

 glaciers which gradually crept up the valleys and vanished as the 

 cold af the Glacial epoch passed away. 



For purposes of comparison I shall now throw into a tabular form 

 the general results obtained from a review of what our friends in 

 America have done in the matter of Glacial geology. This table 

 will show how closely the succession of the drift deposits tallies 

 with that of the equivalent beds in Northern Europe. 



North: Amekican Glacial Deposits. 



, TT 3-n 3 3 -Dj. ■l.^. -u- 1. ( Intense fflacial conditions (general ice-sheet), 



1. Unmodified drift with subjacent ^^^^ intervening periods marked by milder 



and intercalated beds 1 |, conditions. 



2. Moraines Withdrawal of ice-sheet from low grounds. 



3. Osar or ridges of sand and gravel Little fioating-ice ; period of subsidence. 



/ Advance of glaciers ; period of floating-ice ; 

 , T, ,, , J. -r, i- r climate Arctic, but not so intensely glacial as 



4. Leda clay, etc. Erratics j ^^^,.j^„ accumulation of " unmodified drift" ; 



\ land slowly rising. 



5. VaUey Moraines Final retreat of the glaciers. 



It is unnecessary for my purpose that I should refer to the details 

 of the more recent superficial accumulations of North America ; it 

 is enough merely to remind geologists that in none of the post- 

 Glacial or recent deposits of North America have any traces been 

 found of a warmer climate than the present. On the contrary, 

 every proof is afforded us that from the close of the Glacial epoch 

 there, has been a gradual amelioration of climate down to our times. 



In my next paper I shall endeavour to correlate the English and 

 Irish, drifts with those of Scotland. 



IV. — Heee's Floea Fossims Aectica. 

 eommunicated by Egbert H. Scott, F.R.S., etc. 



IN vol. ii. of his Flora Fossilis Arctica, Professor Oswald Heer has 

 treated of the Fossil Flora of Bear Island, and shown that it be- 

 longs to the Lower Carboniferous Formation, of which it forms the 

 lowest beds (named by him the "Ursa" beds), close to the junction 

 with the Devonian. The Tellow Sandstone of Kiltorcan in Ireland, 

 the Grauwacke of the Yosges, and the southern part of the Black 

 Forest, and of St. John in Canada, belong to the same group. In 

 the summer of 1870 two young Swedish naturalists (Wilander and 

 Nathorst) discovered this same formation in the Klaas Billen Bay 

 of the Eisfiord in Spitzbergen, and brought home fine specimens 

 of Lepidodendron Veltheimianum, and Stigmaria ficoides. It has 

 also been found in West Greenland, for Prof. Nordenskiold tells us 



1 I would remind the reader of what I have said in the text concerning the evidence 

 for these intercalated beds. 



