190 General Notes. [ March, a 
existence of these organisms are far more favorable than are those 
of lands a long way to the southward. The flora of the series of 
channels between 80 degrees and 83 degrees north, the shores of — 
which have been botanized-by the officers of the Polar expedi- 
tion, have yielded upwards of 70 flowering plants and ferns, which 
is a much greater number than has been obtained from a similar 
area among the Polar islands to the south-westward, and is unex- 
pectedly large. All are from a much higher latitude than has 
elsewhere been explored botanically, except the islets off the 
extreme north of Spitzbergen. The species are, with two single 
exceptions, all Greenlandic. Spitzbergen, altogether to the south 
of these positions, contains under 100 flowering plants and ferns, 
though its west coast is washed by the Gulf Stream, and its 
shores have been diligently explored by many trained collectors. 
Its north coast has yielded fewer plants, and no less than 15 0 
the plants collected by the Expedition have not been found any- 
where in Spitzbergen. Contrasted with Melville island, in lati- 
tude 75 degrees north, and Port Kennedy, in 72 degrees north, 
the.contrast is even more striking, these well-hunted spots, both 
so much further south, yielding only 67 and 52 species respect- 
ively. This extension of the Greenland flora to so very higha — 
latitude can only be accounted for by the influence of warm cut- — 
rents of air, or of the air being warmed by oceanic currents 
during some period of the summer; and we look with great 
interest to the meteorological observations made during the voy- 
age, which are being discussed by Sir George Nares, who hopes 
of glacial ice that surrounds it on all sides? Professor Heer, 0t 
Zurich, has examined the fossil plants, the most important of 
which are those he states to be of miocene age. There are 25- 
-identifiable species, of which all but one have been found also 1m- 
Spitzbergen. This tracing the miocene flora so far to the north- 
ward was one of the principal scientific objects to be accomplished | 
by the Polar expedition; and the fact that its character continues 
to be neither Polar nor Arctic, but temperate, supports the 
hypothesis that during the era in question a vegetation analogous 
to that now inhabiting the temperate latitudes entirely cappe@ 5 
_» North Polar area of the globe. Mr. Etheridge has worked at th 
_ very valuable collection of paleozoic fossils procured by Captain 
_ Fielden, and these, with the miocene and post pliocene fossi 
