358 The Former Climate of the Polar Regions. [June, 
plants obtained, we may say, from all parts of the polar basin 
and its vicinity: from West Greenland by Inglefield, McClintock, 
Rink, Torell, Whymper, and the Swedish expeditions; from 
East Greenland by Payer; from Alaska by Mr. Furnhjelm; 
from Sagalin by Admiral Furnhjelm; and from different local- 
ities of Spitzbergen by the Swedish expeditions! The spots 
where remains of this period are found are frequently distin- 
guished by their astonishing abundance of fossil plant-remains. 
For example, at a place in Spitzbergen which we have called 
Cape Lyell, after the lately-deceased great English geologist, the 
rocks on the shore for a distance of several hundred feet form a 
continuous herbarium, where every stroke of the hammer brings 
to light an image of the vegetation of a long-past age, when 
the forest vegetation of these tracts consisted of the swamp- 
cypress of Texas (Taxodium distichum), of gigantic sequoias, 
relations or ancestors of California’s mammoth tree, of large- 
leaved birches, limes, oaks, beeches, planes, and even magnolias. 
The place is situated in about 77° 35’ N. lat., on the south side of 
the entrance to Bell Sound, on the western coast of Spitzbergen. 
At the foot of the cliff, on one or two barren heaps of gravel, 
one may discover shoots an inch long of the polar willow, sole 
representative of the present vegetation of the locality. Just off 
the shore the ocean currents drive icebergs, which have fallen 
from the neighboring glatiers, backwards and forwards, and the 
crown of the rock itself forms the limit of a mighty glacier, 
which threatens within a few years to bury, under an icy cover- 
ing of several hundred feet thickness, not only the little vegeta- 
tion that exists here, and which in the summer weeks is some- 
times adorned with charming colors, but also the memorials of 
the ancient glorious age now preserved within its rocks. ; 
By a careful examination of the rich materials here accessible, 
and by a comparison of the petrifactions with those of the same 
period found in more southerly localities, Heer has shown that 
already in the Miocene era considerable variety of climate - 
isted on the face of the earth, though even the pole at that time 
enjoyed a climate fully comparable with that of Central Europe 
now. The then flora of Europe had almost entirely an Ameri- 
can character, and there are many reasons for supposing that the 
continents of Europe and America were at that time united, re 
We may also mention the evidence of an arctic Miocene flora obtained by ye l 
John Richardson from fine indurated clay-beds, associated with coal-seams, on i : 
Mackenzie River, near Great Bear Lake, from which seventeen species of font oe 
plants have been identified by Heer. — Epit. Grou. Maa. 
