484 Proceedings. 



temperature of the Soutliern Ocean and Antarctic regions, and a similar result 

 would take place in the Pacific Ocean. 



In the regular course of events the long axis of the earth's orbit would 

 shift, and in about 12,934 yeai-s the winter solstice of the southern hemi- 

 sphere would be in the aphelion, and in New Zealand the glacial epoch would 

 be at its maximum, while in the northern hemisphere the great Gulf 

 Stream, together with the flow of southern waters across the equator, would be 

 greatly increased, and even the coast of Greenland would enjoy a warm and 

 equable climate ; and such a temperate climate must once have ruled in 

 Greenland. Professor Heer has concluded from his examination of the fossil 

 flora that the temperature of Greenland was about 30° higher than it is now. 

 You will find from Professor Heer's " Contributions to the Fossil Flora of 

 North Greenland " much wonderfully calculated to revolutionize our notions 

 of the climate of the north of Europe. In the deposits of the outskirting land 

 under the great ice-field which now obliterates all indications of hill and 

 valley were found " thirty different kinds of cone-bearing trees, including 

 species allied to the gigantic Wellingtonia, at present growing in California, 

 with other trees, such as beeches, oaks, planes, poplars, maples, walnuts, limes, 

 a magnolia, hazel, blackthorn, holly, logwood, and hawthorn. These were 

 represented not merely by leaves, which occurred, however, in vast profusion, 

 but by fossil flowers and fruits, including even cones of the magnolia, thus 

 proving," says a writer in the " Popular Review," ''that they did not maintain 

 a precarious existence, but ripened their fruits. Vines twined round their 

 trunks — beneath them grew ferns having broad fronds, and with them were 

 mingled several evergreen shrubs." These deposits belong to the miocene age. 



I wish to dwell on this because it has a meaning which must not escape 

 us. In latitudes so high as those of Greenland, no hypothesis, based on an 

 assumed elevation or depression of land, will account for the warm climate 

 which must have existed in Greenland in times remotely ancient. We might 

 look to changes in the great luminary whose rays vivify either directly or 

 indirectly all growth on earth. But additional light is thrown on this subject 

 if we accept Croll's hypothesis. During the glacial period in the south, the 

 medial line of the trades may have been shifted some 20° to the north. 

 Under such a condition of things, says CroU, the warmest part would probably 

 be somewhere about the tropic of the warm hemis])here, and not, as now, at 

 the equator; for since all, or nearly all, the surface water of the equator 

 would then bo impelled over to the warmer hemisphere of the north, the 

 troi>ical regions of that hemisphere would be receiving nearly double their 

 present amount of warm water, and Greenland would enjoy a temperature at 

 legist 30° degrees higher than at present. And when the snow accuuudated 

 in the southern hemisphere, and attained its maximum, we should have the 



