I 



\ 



it; 



ii 



l! 



nait- 



hat 



ifford 



mo: 



: for, 



cli in 



I tern- 

 while 

 ;are 



da: 

 all of 



lib in 



ititr 











orreens 



•ata of 



bee 

 less 



r 





a tor- 

 from 



,pieal 

 0* 





a 



vt 



Ch. X.] 



MIOCENE FOSSIL TKEES IN ARCTIC LATITUDES. 



203 



-ene fossil trees growing in high Arctic latitudes .—The 

 tent to which the Miocene flora flourished within the 

 Trctic circle, even as far towards the pole as our exploring 

 Seditions have penetrated, has been clearly pointed out by 

 Professor Heer, in an important treatise on the fossil flora 

 of the Arctic regions now ready for publication.* In the 

 numerous plates which illustrate this work, we see figures of 

 m0 re than 60 species of North Greenland fossil plants, found 

 opposite Disco Island, lat. 70° N. * """ ~ ^ ~~— ~ 



Among them are several 



{W< 



Miocene 



zerland, Germany, or England. There are also seven other 

 conifers, four poplars, two willows, three species of beech, 

 four of oak (some of which have leaves half a foot long), a 

 plane-tree, a walnut, a plum or prunus, a buckthorn, an 

 andromeda, a daphnogene with large leathery leaves, and seve- 

 ral other evergreens, some of new and extinct genera. 



The 



Heer 



temperature, while the evergreens exclude the idea of a very 

 cold winter. That these and other fossil plants from arctic 

 localities really lived on the spot, and were not drifted thither 

 by marine currents, is proved by the quantity of leaves pressed 

 together, and in some cases associated with fruits, also by the 

 marsh plants which accompany them, and by the upright trees 

 with roots which were seen by Capt. Inglefield and byBmk. 

 Still farther north in Spitzbergen, in lat. 78° 



Heer 



of them agreeing specifically with North Greenland fossils. 



urn < 

 lime 



formation 



lated on the spot. Such a vigorous growth of fossil trees, in 

 a country within 12° of the pole, where there are now scarcely 

 any shrubs except a dwarf willow and a few herbaceous and 

 cryptogamous plants, most of the surface being covered with 



rkable. When the fossils are 



snow 



rem 



* Heer, Flora Fossilis Arctica, with denskiold, and Captain Sir L. McClin- 

 40 illustrative plates, containing figures tock, Sir E. Maclure, Colomb, ingle- 

 of fossil plants, collected by M. Nor- field, and others. 



