On the Change in the Obliquity of the Ecliptic. 427 



in Exmouth Island, lat. 77° 16' N. and long. 96° W., at an eleva- 

 tion of 570 feet above the level of the sea, bones which were ex- 

 amined by Professor Owen and pronounced to be those of the 

 Ichthyosaurus*. Mr. Salter remarks that, at the time that these 

 fossils were deposited, " a condition of climate something like 

 that of our own shores was prevailing in latitudes not far short 

 of 80° N."f And Mr. Jukes says that during the oolitic period, 

 " in latitudes where now sea and land are bound in ice and snow 

 throughout the year, there formerly flourished animals and plants 

 similar to those living in our own province at the time. The 

 questions thus raised/' continues Mr. Jukes, "as to the climate 

 of the globe when cephalopods and reptiles, such as we should 

 expect to find only in warm or temperate seas, could live in such 

 high latitudes, are not easy to answer" J. When we come to ex- 

 amine the arctic flora of the Upper Miocene period, we find that 

 North Greenland and the entire polar regions at that period en- 

 joyed a condition of climate as warm as that of England at the 

 present day. " We know/' says Sir Charles Lyell, " that Green- 

 land was not always covered with snow and ice; for when we 

 examine the tertiary strata of Disco Island, we discover there a 

 multitude of fossil plants which demonstrate that, like many 

 other parts of the arctic regions, it formerly enjoyed a mild and 

 genial climate §. 



At the Meeting of the British Association held at Nottingham 

 in August last, Professor Heer read a valuable paper on the 

 Miocene Flora of North Greenland. In this paper some remark- 

 able conclusions as to the probable temperature of Greenland 

 during the Miocene period were given. Upwards of sixty differ- 

 ent species brought from Atanekerdluk, a place on the Waigat 

 opposite Disco, in lat. 70° N., have been examined by him. 



A steep hill rises, he says, on the coast to a height of 1080 

 feet ; and at this level the fossil plants are found. Large quanti- 

 ties of wood in a fossilized or carbonized condition lie about. 

 Captain Inglefield observed one trunk thicker than a man's body, 

 standing upright. The leaves, however, are the most important 

 portion of the deposit, and give a most valuable insight into the 

 nature of the vegetation which formed this primeval forest. In 

 regard to those fossilized plants, he concludes that they cannot 

 have been drifted from any great distance. They must have 

 grown on the spot where they are found. And they prove with- 

 out a doubt that North Greenland in the Miocene epoch had a 



* The Last of the Arctic Voyages, by Captain Sir E. Belcher, vol. ii. 

 p. 389, Appendix. 



t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. ii. p. 379. 



X Manual of Geology, pp. 395, 493. 



§ Antiquity of Man,, second edition, p. 237. 



