PREFACE 
GOOD many years ago British Arctic Ex- 
plorers, on their way to the Polar Sea, and 
other travellers first brought to Europe collections — 
of fossil plants from Disko Island and from various 
localities on the adjacent coasts of Greenland. In 
more recent years large collections, made by Danish 
and Swedish Geologists, have been acquired by the 
museums of Copenhagen and Stockholm. 
To students of the vegetation of the past fossil 
plants from Greenland rocks are of exceptional 
interest, mainly because of the evidence they afford 
of climatic conditions very different from those 
within the Arctic Circle at the present day. An 
examination of the Copenhagen and Stockholm 
collections inspired me with a desire to visit Green- 
land in order to obtain as representative a set of 
fossils as possible for the British Museum and for 
Cambridge. Having learnt from my friend Pro- 
fessor Ostenfeld (of Copenhagen) that English 
visitors would be welcome at the Danish Arctic 
Station on Disko Island, I applied through the 
British Foreign Office for the necessary permission 
to visit the country, and, with the help of a grant 
from the Royal Society, supplemented by a grant 
from the Cambridge University Worts Travelling 
Fund, I was at length able to gratify my wish. 
Had it not been for the assistance generously 
given to me by Professor Ostenfeld my desire 
