41 8 PROF. NORDEN^KIOLD, EXPEDIT10i:i TO GREENLAND. 



coveries prove that his researches were carried out in a true 

 scientific spirit, and with a completeness and accuracy the like of 

 which but few of the old civilized lands of Europe could at that 

 time produce. Even North Greenland was visited by Giesecke. 

 Here he discovered, among other things, tbssil Plants at Kome * 

 and on the east coast of Disko,f and furnished several instruc- 

 tive sections. Subsequently (1838) the coal-beds of North Green- 

 land were, by order of the Danish Government, examined by 

 J. C. Schythe, though, as it appears, chiefly for technical purposes. 

 A more important event for geological science was Dr. E-ink's four 

 years' residence (1848-1851) in North Greenland, during which 

 time he visited many parts of the Basalt region, whence rich col- 

 lections were taken home, among which may be mentioned fossil 

 trunks of trees from several places, as also fossils from Kome, de- 

 scribed in Heer's " Flora fossilis arctica." Some years later a 

 Dane, Jens Nielsen, residing at Atanekerdluk, discovered magni- 

 ficent Miocene fossils there, a large number of which were collected, 

 when Captain Inglefield, in company with Captain Colomb, and 

 Mr. Olrik, the Inspector of North Greenland, visited the place in 

 July 1854. 



These strong proofs of a formerly warm climate up in the 

 neighbourhood of the Pole aroused astonishment in all who 

 saw them. More collections were made, partly by Inspector 

 01rik,{ partly by other officials of the Danish Trade. Also Prof. 

 Torell, Dr. Walker, Dr. Lyall, and others brought home not 

 inconsiderable collections from their travels in Greenland. 



The importance of this discovery to the history of our globe 

 was, however, first taught by means of Heer's " Flora fossilis 

 arctica," in which these fossils are described, together with similar 

 fossils collected during the English Franklin Expeditions from 

 the most northerly archipelago of America, by Prof. Steenstrup 

 from Iceland, and by the Swedish Polar Expeditions from Spitz- 

 bergen. The British Association had already (1867), at the 

 instance of Mr. Robert H. Scott, F.R.S., sent out an expedition 

 to make new researches in this geologically interesting quarter. 

 These were entrusted to Messrs. Whymper and Brown ;§ but in 



* Giesecke's Journal. Heer's Flora fossilis arctica, p. 7. 



t The above-mentioned article in Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, 

 p. 493. 



X Mr. Olrik's collections were given partly to the University Museum at 

 Copenhagen, partly to Capt. M'Clintock, who, on his return in 1859, passed 

 Disko, and, on returning home, presented them to the Koyal Society in 

 Dublin, the same institution to which Capt. Colomb had presented his collec- 

 tions. Capt. Inglefield's collections were given partly to the Geological 

 Survey in London ; Dr. "Walker's and Dr. Lyall's (from the eastern side 

 of Disko, near the sea-level) to the Botanical Museum at Kew ; Prof. 

 Torell's to the National Museum at Stockholm; Mr. Whymper's and Mr. 

 Brown's to the British Museum. The collections from Spitzbergeu and of 

 the expedition of 1870 will be divided between the Museums of Stockholm 

 and Gottenburg. 



§ See Oswald Heer, " Contributions to the Fossil Flora of North Green- 

 land, being a Description of the Plants collected by Mr. Edward Whymper 

 (and Dr. Brown) during the summer of 1867." — Phil. Transactions of Roy. 

 Soc, vol. 159, part ii,, p. 445. 1870. 



