5 1 6 PREHISTORIC E UROPE. 



that the plants of the west coast of Norway must have come by 

 way of Denmark into Southern Sweden, and thence spread 

 round the Christianiafjord to the west country. And seeing 

 that the climate in the neighbourhood of the Christianiafjord no 

 longer favours the growth of many of the plants in question, the 

 inference is obvious that this has deteriorated since the immi- 

 gration of the west-coast flora. 



But the genial conditions that obtained for a time during the 

 postglacial period are still more strikingly illustrated by the 

 discovery made many years ago by the Arctic Expedition under 

 Sir Edward Belcher. Sir Edward brought away from the shores 

 of Wellington Channel (lat. 75° 32' N.) portions of a tree which 

 was found occupying the place of its growth, and of which he 

 says, " I at once perceived that it was no spar, and not placed 

 there by human agency ; it was the trunk and root of a tree, 

 which had apparently grown there and flourished, but at what 

 date who will venture to say ? It is, indeed, one of the ques- 

 tions involved in the change of this climate. As the men pro- 

 ceeded with the removal of the frozen clay surrounding the 

 roots, which were completely cemented, as it were, into the 

 frozen mass, breaking off short, like earthenware, they gradually 

 developed the roots, as well as what appeared to be portions of 

 leaves and other parts of the tree, which had become embedded 

 where they fell, and now were barely distinguishable — at least, 

 not so much as some impressions on coal — to the casual ob- 

 server. . . . Two neighbouring mounds were also dug into, 

 but they proved to be peat — doubtless other stumps and vege- 

 table matter, — the only remaining traces of what might at some 

 distant period have been a forest. All the surrounding earth 

 and tufts of grass indicated this spot to have been the bottom of 

 some lake or marsh." 1 Dr. Hooker pronounced the wood to 

 belong to a species of pine, probably Pinus {Abies) alba, the 

 most northern conifer, which advances as far north as the sixty- 

 large part of the trough in question, and this would prove almost as effectual a 

 barrier as the sea. 



1 The Last of the Arctic Voyages, vol. i. p. 380. 



