FLORA, 195 
of which remains have been found in tho Arctic regions, 
have been found occurring again and again in the direction 
indicated, and this up to the Equator, if not beyond it. 
These occur in deposits of the same antiquity everywhere, 
and with only such modifications as can be most satisfac- 
torily accounted for on the supposition that the first 
appearance of the type was in the Polar regions, The 
modifications are such as altered conditions of growth 
might induce—it being more in accordance with what is 
known of the laws of morphology to suppose the tropical 
form of the plant to be a modification of the polar one, 
than the polar form of the plant to be a modification of 
the tropical one. 
With this exposition of the matter I resume my state- 
menis:—‘ The discoveries so happily brought to a focus 
by Dr Heer,’ writes Count Saporta, ‘have been acquired 
for science by the successive efforts of a multitude of 
travellers and at a cost of unheard of fatigue. Many of 
the treasures, after having been examined, or even after 
having been collected and carried off by force of arms, it 
was found necessary to abandon in whole or in part. Dr 
Heer cites the collections of Nierstsching in the seas about 
Bebring’s Straits, of Dr Armstrong, of Sir L. M‘Clintock 
at Melville Island and Prince Patrick Island, and those of 
Dr Kane in Greenland, as having been of necessity 
abandoned. But others have been more happy. The 
American Arctic archipelago has furnished not only coal 
plants, collected by Sir L. M‘Clintock in Melville Island 
and Bathurst Island, and deposited by him in the museum 
of Dublin; but this museum has also received from 
Captain Maclure cones and fossil woods from Banks’ Land, 
The British Museum possesses fossil plants of a locality 
near the Polar Circle, situated on the 65th° of North lati- 
tude, near the mouth of the Mackenzie River, collected 
by Dr Richardson. The Alaska Territory in America, 
which formerly belonged to Russia, has supplied its con- 
tingent. Specimens published by Dr Heer, collected by a 
Finlander M. Hjalmar Turuhjelm, of Helsingfors, is only 
