196 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
a small portion of the original collection, lost in the wreck 
of the vessel by which they were being conveyed—some 
supplied from the isle of Kugu, near Sitka or New Arch- 
angel—others from Cook’s Bay on the peninsula of Alaska, 
580 and 59° of North latitude. The fossil plants of Iceland 
have been principally collected by Professor Strenstrup of 
Copenhagen ; they belong, like those of Alaska and of 
the Mackenzie River, to localities situated beyond the 
Polar Circle, but too close to that limit to forbid that one 
should seek to utilise them in a work of so comprehensive 
a character. 
‘With regard to the carboniferous flora of Bear Island, 
Professor Heer has received, through the medium of the 
Academy of St. Petersburg, rich collections of Siberian 
fossil plants, some come from the Island Sakhalin, at the 
mouth of the river Amour on the east coast of Manchooria ; 
others are jurassic plants from the Government of Irkutsk. 
These are, it is true, stations situated well beyond the 
Polar Circle, towards the 55th° of North latitude, in nearly 
the same parallel as Dantzic and Copenhagen, but the 
ancient flora of them should contribute necessarily to 
clear up vividly the history of Polar vegetation, properly 
so called. 
‘The two countries in the northern region which are the 
most rich in fossil plants are Greenland and Spitzbergen. 
The ancient vegetable wealth of these centres is indicated 
by the numerous beds of coal which have been met with, 
and have repeatedly been exploited, on the places which are 
accessible ; they belong to many epochs, and consequently 
they mark the repetition of the same phenomena through 
an extent of successive ages. The characteristics of the 
Polar land strikes forcibly the observer who seeks to exploit 
them as a geologist; on the one hand the ground dis- 
appears almost everywhere as one goes to a distance from 
the coast, under a thick layer of ice, which limits access 
to the interior to a few kilometres; on the other hand, 
the reefs, the declivities, the high beaches, and the precipi- 
tous summits of the litoral zone, wherever the action of 
