American Association at Dubuque. 295 
e 
of Iceland, Spitzbergen, Greenland, Mackenzie river, an ska. 
It is named 8. Langsdorfiz, but is pronounced to be very much 
eS. sempervirens, our living redwood of the Californian coast, 
and to be the ancient representive of it. Fossil specimens of a 
similar, if not the same, species have been recently detected in the 
two redwoods of California are the direct or collateral descen- 
dants of the two ancient species which so closely resemble them. 
The forests of the arctic zone in tertiary times contained at 
least three other species of Seguota, as determined by their re- 
mains, one of which, from Spitzbergen, also much resembles the 
common redwood of California. Another, “ which appears to have 
the commonest coniferous tree on Disco,” was common in 
England and some other parts of Europe. So the Sequoias, now 
remarkable for their restricted station and numbers, as well as 
for their extraordinary size, are of an ancient stock; their 
ancestors and kindred formed a large part of the forests which 
flourished throughout the polar regions, now desolate and ice- 
clad, and which extended into low latitudes in Europe. On 
this continent one species at least had reached to the vicinity of 
its present habitat before the glaciation of the region. Among 
€ fossil specimens already found in California, but which our 
trustworthy paleontological botanist has not yet had time to ex- 
amine, we may expect to find evidence of the early arrival of 
these two redw upon the ground which they now, after 
much yicissitude, scantily occupy. 
