344 THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 



American feature. We would rather suppose that the 

 former range of the musk-ox, a circumpolar species, was 

 Arctic-European as well as American. In considering the 

 origin of the flora of Labrador, though not possessing a 

 special knowledge of the botany, we would on general 

 principles venture to dissent from the view of Dr. 

 Hooker, that the flora of northeastern Arctic America 

 is essentially Scandinavian in its origin. 



The flora of Labrador, so far as we were enabled to 

 observe, follows closely the laws of distribution of the 

 land and sea animals ; and any theory that separates the 

 origin of the two assemblages cannot be in accordance 

 with the general laws of the distribution of life, be it 

 plant or animal, over the surface of the globe. The 

 fauna of Australasia is no less peculiar than its flora ; 

 the flora of Brazil is characterized by its peculiar tropical 

 American forms, just as the fauna is circumscribed by 

 peculiar features. So we must believe that the origin of 

 the Arctic- European and Arctic-American and Arctic- 

 Asiatic floras and faunas was distinct from the outset, and 

 that they have never borrowed, by extensive inter-conti- 

 nental migrations, each other's peculiar characteristics. 

 As we have observed in regard to the animals, there are 

 a very large proportion of arctic plants spread over the 

 whole arctic zone, which cannot be said to be American 

 any more than European or Asiatic, but simply circum- 

 polar. On the other, hand, there is a small percentage of 

 which the reverse is true, and this is paralleled among the 

 animals. 



Sir J. D. Hooker, in his elaborate essay on the Dis- 

 tribution of Arctic Plants in the Linnean Transactions 

 for 1 86 1, accounts for the greater richness of the flora of 



