R. H. Scott — Fossil Flora of the Arctic Regions. 71 



forms are wanting. These facts show us that great changes of 

 climate must have occurred, and it is interesting to trace when these 

 first began to show themselves. 



The Cretaceous Flora of the Arctic regions throw important 

 light on this point, and our knowledge of it has been largely 

 enriched by the discoveries of the Swedish expedition of 1870. 

 When the first volume of the Flora Arctica appeared Prof. Heer 

 could only speak of a few specimens belonging to this epoch, 

 which had been found at Kome, on the north side of the Noursoak 

 Peninsula. Prof. Nordenskiold has, however, paid great attention 

 to these fossils, and has discovered several new localities for them on 

 the north shore of the same peninsula. They are found in black 

 shales, apparently from the character of the fossils, belonging to the 

 Lower Chalk — the Urgonian — for they resemble the Flora of Werns- 

 dorf. Among forty-three species already determined, I find twenty- 

 four Ferns, five Cycads, eight Conifers, three Monocotyledons ; only 

 one fragment is dicotyledonous, a Poplar leaf, and it is tlie oldest dicoty- 

 ledonous plant that lias hitherto been discovered. Among the numerous 

 Ferns the Gleichenia is the most common type, but Marattiacece 

 and Sipheno'pteris are not rare. Of Cycads we have Zamites, with 

 very fine leaves, and Podozamites Hoheneggeri (known from Wems- 

 dorf in the Carpathians). It is striking that Sequoias and Pines 

 appear among the Conifers, approaching closely to Tertiary types. 



The plants of the black shales of the south side of Noursoak 

 Peninsula have a different character. Nordenskiold has found them 

 at two points (Atane, and on the shore below Atanekerdluk, the 

 well-known Miocene locality). The number of species is about 

 equal to that found in the Lower Chalk just referred to, but their type 

 is almost totally different, and it indicates that they belong to the 

 Upper Chalk. Sequoia again predominates among the Conifers, and 

 we find fortunately cones as well as twigs ; with them we find a 

 Thuites and a Salisburea ! Cycads are much less common than in the 

 Lower Chalk, only one ( Cycadites DicJcsoni) having been discovered. 

 Among the Ferns, though these are common (eleven species), we find 

 only two G-leichenias (instead of six) ; other forms, such as Marat- 

 tiacece, Adiantum and Dictyophyllum, have disappeared. The pre- 

 dominant forms are Dictolytedons. of which there are twenty-four, 

 of various genera and species ; many of them have not yet been 

 absolutely determined. But we find three species of Poplar, one Fig 

 (Leaves scadi Fruits) , one Myrica, one Sassafras, one Credneria, with 

 two Magnolias. These facts show us that here, as in Centi-al Europe, 

 the Lower Cretaceous Flora consists principally of Ferns, Conifers, 

 and Cycads ; while in the Upper Cretaceous Dicotyledons appear. 

 The climatological changes which produced so important modifica- 

 tions in the types of vegetable life must have been as extensive in 

 high as in lower latitudes. If we examine into the climatic character 

 of the Lower Cretaceous Flora, we find it to be almost tropical, as 

 will be seen from the predominant forms of vegetation. The same 

 is true of the Flora of Wernsdorf in the Northern Carpathians, so that 



