-` Scientific 
FEST E SOAR RMP ART AS Pee Pap 0! Serie RN) pened ee tA Ree Ay tee me yi 
S Na aas iy ela 
Let Naf AE a aa Le ie ian R EAT ge AT, 
Sei are 
K 
fore 
tology from 
neighborhood 
supply us wit 
ot different 
these present 
. Vegetation, wh 
7 certainly 
_ "Pecies of Lepi 
eno, 9. 
time, but also many times before 
that they were also then followed by somewhat similar results, 
Immediately 
xtensive contin 
north of Europ 
bergen Vast str 
_ Period, in whic 
n examined and described by Professor Heer, of Ziirich. We 
1876.] The Former Climate of the Polar Regions. 353 
; and there is reason to suppose 
different geological periods as possible. . When in our days a 
question is seriously propounded, it is seldom long be- 
it is answered ; and even in the instance before us we have 
of late years received numerous contributions to geological clima- 
lands the geographical situation of which, in the 
of the pole, renders them best fitted to yield in- 
formation of this kind. 
The geology of the polar tracts can in two different ways 
h information concerning the former climate, partly 
y a comparison of the fossil animals and plants there found with 
» partly by an accurate examination of the various strata 
glacial formations, 
© now possess fossil remains from the polar regions belong- 
all the periods into which the geologist has divided 
the earth. The Silurian fossils which McClintock 
hg to forms too far removed from those now living, to furnish 
“Seg Sure information relative to the climate in which they have 
Ived, 
after the termination of the Devonian age, an 
ent seems to have been formed in the polar basin 
e, and we still find in Beeren Island and Spitz- 
ata of slate, sandstone, and coal, belonging to that 
h are imbedded abundant remains of a luxuriant 
ich, as well as several of the fossil plant-remains 
polar regions by the Swedish expeditions, have 
meet with forms, vast Sigillaria, Calamites, and 
dodendron, ete., which have no exactly correspond- 
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