854 The Former Climate of the Polar Regions. [June, 
ing representatives in the plants now existing. Colossal and 
luxuriant forms of vegetation, however, indicate a climate highly 
favorable to vegetable development. A careful examination of 
the petrifactions taken from these strata shows also so accurate 
an agreement with the fossil plants of the same period found in 
many parts of the continent of Central Europe, that we are 
obliged to conclude that at that time no appreciable difference of 
climate existed on the face of the earth, but that a uniform 
climate extremely favorable for vegetation — but not on that 
account necessarily tropical — prevailed from the equator to the 
poles. 
The sand and slate beds here mentioned do not contain any 
marine petrifactions, whence we may conclude that they have 
been formed in lakes or other hollows in an extensive polar con- 
tinent. In Beeren Island and Spitzbergen they are, however, 
covered by beds of limestone and siliceous rock, which form the 
chief material in Beeren Island, and of several considerable 
mountains on the southern side of Hinloopen Strait, and the 
innermost bays of Ice-fjord in Spitzbergen. The manner in 
which these mountains rise several thousand feet above the sur- 
rounding snow desert, their regular form, crowned with vast 
masses of dark volcanic rock divided into vertical columns, the 
siliceous strata forming perpendicularly-scarped terraces, and the 
tendency of the calcareous beds to fall away and form natural 
arches, give to these mountains the appearance of ruins of colossal 
ancient fortifications and temples, unequaled in sublime and des- 
olate magnificence. Here, indeed, we meet with the monumental 
gravestones of a long-past age. The rock is in fact formed almost 
entirely of shells of marine mollusca, fragments of corals, and 
bryozoa of the age of the mountain-limestone. We have then, 
here, not only a proof that the ancient polar continent sank 
down again and gave place to a deep polar ocean, but also, 12 
the correspondence of the corals, shells, and other associated 
organic remains with those met with in more southerly tracts, 
an indication that the warm polar climate remained unchanged. 
The mountain-limestone period was followed by an era durmg 
which the richest coal-beds of England, Belgium, and Ameria 
were formed, and which has accordingly received the name of : 
the coal period. A new distribution of land and water had now : 
taken place, continents had again arisen in the polar tracts, M 
the sandstones and argillaceous strata of which we aga | 
Bell Sound, on the western coast of Spitzbergen, fossil plants : 
in find, at 
