410 Chronicles of Science. [July, 



extensive to furnish valuable evidence as to climate. All the speci- 

 mens, moreover, in this and other collections, came from one locality 

 — Atanekerdluk, — which is in lat. 70° N., and were obtained from 

 a deposit occurring at a height of 1,080 feet. Professor Heer is of 

 opinion that the leaves " cannot have been drifted from any great 

 distance," but that the plants grew on the spot where their remains 

 are found. Three species had been previously mentioned by 

 Brongniart and Yaupel, making with those now recognized a total 

 of 66. Of these, 18 are found in the Miocene deposits of Central 

 Europe, 9 being common to the Upper and Lower Molasse, while 

 four species have not as yet been noticed in the Upper Molasse. 

 The author therefore infers " that the fossil forest of Atanekerdluk 

 flourished in that high northern latitude at the Lower Miocene 

 Epoch," and that North Greenland had a much warmer climate 

 during the Miocene period than it has at present. The extent to 

 which the present temperature of the region would have to be raised, 

 to render possible the existence there of such plants as those de- 

 scribed in the paper, is estimated by Professor Heer at about 30° F. 

 Most stress is laid on the presence in the collection of two species 

 of Sequoia, one of which (S. Langsdorfii) is found fossil in as 

 low a latitude as that of Central Italy, and is the commonest tree 

 at Atanekerdluk ; it is also " so closely allied to the Sequoia sem- 

 pervirens of Lambert (the ' Kedwood'), that we may consider the 

 latter as its lineal descendant." Now this tree, we learn, M requires 

 for its existence a summer temperature of at least 59° or 60° F., 

 and for the ripening of its fruit and seeds one of about 64°." The 

 winter temperature must not fall below 31°, and the mean annual 

 temperature must be about 49°. The climate of Greenland must 

 therefore have been at least as warm as that of Lausanne, and was 

 probably somewhat warmer. These facts are at the present time of 

 peculiar importance, and are recognized as being so by Professor Heer, 

 who avows his belief " that it is impossible, by any re-arrangement of 

 land and water, to produce for the northern hemisphere a climate 

 which would explain the phenomena in a satisfactory manner ;" and 

 he concludes his paper with the remark u that we are here face to 

 face with a problem whose solution, in all probability, must be at- 

 tempted, and we doubt not completed, by the astronomer." 



In a paper " Ueber die Parallelisirung des norddeutschen, 

 englischen, und franzosischen Oligocans, published in the last 

 number of the ' Zeitschrift' of the German Geological Society, Herr 

 von Koenen returns to the discussion of his favourite topic, for the 

 purpose of disputing the conclusions arrived at by M. Hebert in a 

 paper oq the Nummuhtic beds of Northern Italy, published last 

 year in the ' Bulletin' of the Geological Society of France. The two 

 papers may be taken as respectively typical of the German and 

 French schools of Tertiary geologists ; but until we have some 



