■it 











«Li 



•m 



land: 



■4 

 ■and, 



i that 



ea; 



? nest 



kal 

 which 



lpera- 



it era, 

 iioniu 

 tribe, 

 d Dr. 



;eSa- 



red in 



Arau- 

 land. 



>phal- 



thint- 



be # 



as * 







Ch. XL] 



CLIMATE OF CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD 



225 



laria is unknown, but the genus is regarded by Hooker as 

 a highly developed cryptogam, having considerable affinity 

 with the fern tribe. The Lepidodendra belong to the same 

 order as the living Lycopodia, and that these two families 

 should be represented by numerous species of the size and 

 height of forest trees seems to imply a warm and humid 

 climate in the latitudes where they flourished. 



As to the geographical range in the northern hemisphere 

 of this ancient flora, it is already ascertained that it extends 

 from Alabama in the United States in lat. 30° to the arctic 

 regions, while it has been traced in Europe from central 



Spain in lat. 38° to Scotland in lat. 56°. In the arctic 



it was first observed in Melville Island, in lat. 75°, 



regions 



during Capt. Parry's expedition. The plants then collected 

 were examined by the late Dr. Lindley, who recognised them 

 as true fossils of the ancient coal."* The whole collection has 

 unfortunately been lost, but among other fossils since brought 

 from the same island by Sir Leopold McClintock, Heer has 

 recognised ferns of the genus Schizopteris, a form character- 

 istic of the ancient coal. Middendorf found Catamites cannce- 

 formis in a very high latitude near the mouths of the Lena. 

 In Bear Island, lat. 74° 36' N., midway between Spitzbergen 

 and the North Cape, in about the same parallel as Melville 

 Island, Von Buch has described strata of the Coal period 

 containing characteristic marine fossils, and underlying these 

 rocks he mentions that shales occur in which there are well- 

 preserved ferns of the genus Pecopteris. 



After what was said at p. 203 of the spread of the Miocene 

 flora over the arctic regions, and its near approach to the 

 North Pole, the reader will feel no surprise at finding that 

 in times long antecedent there was an equally vigorous ve- 

 getation in the same latitudes. The coal plants were of 

 different genera, and some few of them perhaps of different 

 orders, from any now existing, and they may therefore have 

 been endowed with a constitution enabling them to accom- 

 modate themselves to a long polar night. 



We know, by experiment, that plants which are natives 



VOL. I, 



* Penny Cyclopaedia, art. Coal Plants 



Q 





