LIST OP LABRADOR MARINE ANIMALS. 429 



Cardita borecdis on the New Jeis'-y coast, where it is certainly 

 an alien. 



In the absence of requisite data concerning the distribution of 

 marine life in the arctic and subarctic seas, we shall be very ma- 

 terially aided by tracing the coarse of the yearly isothermal 

 lines; and more especially for our purpose that area of the At- 

 lantic ocean comprised between the line of 40° and 32°. The 

 line of 40°, according to Professor Henry*, begins in America at 

 the Northern portion of Nova Scotia. Tbis agrees well with 

 Gould's and Forbes' designation of Cape Breton, as being the 

 dividing point between the Acadian and Arctic provinces. The 

 line of " 32° indicates the boundary of the region within which the 

 average temperature is below the freezing point. It will be seen 

 at a glance, that, instead of being circular in its outlines, it has 

 the form of an irregular elongated ellipse, the greater diameter 

 of which is across the pole, from the southern extremity of Hud- 

 son's Bay, to the south of Lake Baikal, in Siberia." Upon the 

 map accompanying the report, the line is made to pass through 

 the lower third of the eastern coast of Labrador, dividing Cape 

 Farewell from the remaining portion of Greenland, and touching 

 Europe at Finmark in the vicinity of Nordland, one of the most 

 southern of the Lofoden Islands. Thus to the north it shuts 

 out a vast circurapolar region, including the northern portion of 

 Hudson's Bay, with all of Baffin's B iy ; and upon the European side 

 it includes Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. We are therefore con- 

 firmed in our opinion formed before meeting with these meteoro- 

 logical facts, that this elliptical area embraces a belt of faunas 

 of a subarctic character ; and in the supposition that the 

 fauna of Labrador and the Newfoundland banks has an European 

 equivalent fauna in Finmark, occupying an extent of perhaps some 

 400 miles along the coast from Nordland to a point somewhere 

 beyond Cape North. 



Brunswick, Maine, Aug. 1863. 



EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES. 



Pl.s. i. ii. Fig. 1. Lepralia producta Pack. 



" 2. Membranipora solida Pack. 



" 3. Menipea fruticosa Pack. 



" 4. Haiophila borealis Pack. 



H 5. Myriozoum subgracile D'Orby. 



" 6. Buccinum cretaceum Reeve. 



* Meteorology in its connection with Agriculture. Patent Office 

 Report on Agriculture, 1856. 



