374! HEER, ARCTIC FOSSIL PLANTS. 



LI. — Notice of Heer's " Flora fossilis arctica" (Car- 

 boniferous Fossils of Bear Island and Spitzbergen, 

 and Cretaceous and Miocene Plants of Spitzbergen 

 and Greenland). Communicated by Egbert H. Scott, 

 F.R.S., &c. 



[Reprinted, with Permission, from the Geological Magazine, 

 Vol. IX., No. 2, February 1872, pp. 69-72.] 



Carboniferous: Bear Island and Spitzbergen. — In vol. ii. of 

 his *' Flora fossilis arctica," Professor Oswald Heer has treated of 

 the Fossil Flora of Bear Island, and shown that it belongs to the 

 Lower Carboniferous Formation, of which it forms the lowest beds 

 (named by him the "Ursa Stage"), close to the junction with 

 the Devonian.* The Yellow Sandstone of Kiltorcan in Ireland, 

 some of the Grauwacke of the Vosges and the southern part of 

 the Black Forest, and some strata near St. John in New Bruns- 

 wick, belong to the same group. In the summer of 1870 two 

 young Swedish naturalists (Wilander and Nathorst) discovBred 

 this same formation in the Klaas Billen Bay of the Eisfiord in 

 Spitzbergen, and brought home fine specimens of Lepidodendron 

 Vettheimianum and Stigmaria Jicoides. It has also been found in 

 West Greenland ; for Prof. Nordenskiold tells us that the Swedish 

 Expedition, which went to Disco, in the course of last summer, to 

 fetch the meteorite, weighing about 20 tons, which he discovered 

 at Ovifak in that island, has brought home fossil plants of true 

 Carboniferous age. 



The Carboniferous formation, therefore, has been extensively 

 developed in the Arctic regions, for it occurs also in the Parry 

 Islands and in Siberia ; on the Lena it approaches the Arctic Circle. 

 These facts show us that at the Carboniferous epoch there was a 

 great extent of land near the North Pole, covered with a vegetation 

 closely resembling that of our own latitudes at the same period. 

 Of 18 species of fossil plants at Bear Island, only 3 are peculiar to 

 it, the others are common to the European localities (such as Lepi- 

 dodendron Veltheimianum, Knorria imbricata, &c.) ; and, from 

 the fact that they are as fine and as well developed in the northern 

 as in the southern deposits, it is evident that no great difference 

 of climate could have prevailed between the two localities.f 



Tertiary : Spitzbergen, — In Spitzbergen we have, besides the 

 Miocene Flora and Fauna, an important Diluvial formation. 132 

 species of Miocene plants have been found, mostly in Eisfiord 

 (lat. 78° N.), but some in King's Bay (lat. 78° 66' N.). The 

 chief form here is an Equisetum (E. arcticum) ; but it is sur- 



* See also Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii., p. 1, and xxvii.,pp. 161-173 

 t Prof. Heer has worked out this idea very fully in his paper on Bear 



Island, and traced the alternations of rise and fall of the land, which probably 



occurred during the later part of the Palaeozoic periodi 



