434 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30 ; 



a much higher latitude than has elsewhere been explored botanic-ally, ex- 

 cept the islets off the extreme north of Spitzbergen. The species are, with 

 two exceptions, all Greenlandic. The exceptions are Androsace septen- 

 trionalis, which, though found in the northern regions of all the continents, 

 has never elsewhere been seen north of lat. 72°, and Pedicularis capitata, 

 an American and North- Asiatic species, not hitherto recorded north of 

 the same parallel. 



Spitzbergen, stretching from latitude 76° 30' to 80° N., quite to the 

 south of the positions here referred to, has contributed not more than 

 100 flowering plants and ferns, notwithstanding that its west coast is 

 washed by the Gulf-stream, and that its shores have been diligently 

 explored by many trained collectors. Fifteen of the plants collected by 

 the Expedition have not been found anywhere in Spitzbergen. Compared 

 with Melville Island, in lat. 75° N., and Port Kennedy, in 72° N., the 

 contrast is even more striking, these well-hunted spots, both so much 

 further south, yielding only 67 and 52 species respectively. 



This extension of the 'Greenland flora to so very high a latitude can 

 only be accounted for by the influence of warm currents of air, or of the 

 air being warmed by oceanic currents, during some period of the summer; 

 and I look with great interest to the meteorological observations made 

 during the voyage, which are being discussed by Sir George Nares, who 

 hopes to have them completed in a couple of months. The observations on 

 the temperature of sea-water will, he expects, give new information ; and 

 the study of certain warm gales and warm currents that were observed in 

 lat. 82° and 83° N. can hardly fail to increase our knowledge of the local 

 climate. 



May not these phenomena of vegetation and temperature indicate the 

 existence of large tracts of land clothed with vegetation in the interior 

 of Greenland, far within the mountain-ranges of its ice-clad coast, and 

 protected by these from the heavier snowfalls and from the accumu- 

 lation of glacial ice which borders that island on all sides ? 



The fossil plants collected have been examined and reported upon by 

 Professor Heer. Of these the most important are the Miocene. They 

 consist of 25 identifiable species, of which 18 are known Arctic Miocene 

 fossils. All but one had been previously found in Spitzbergen. The most 

 interesting of them is the Conifer, assumed to be identical with the 

 existing American " Bald Cypress," Taxodium distichum, a plant which is 

 now confined to Eastern North America, from lat. 39° southwards, and to 

 which specimens found in the Miocenes of Prance, Italy, Prussia, Green- 

 land, and N.W. America have also been referred. 



Professor Heer further thinks that he has identified the remains of a 

 Spruce with the European and Asiatic Norway Spruce (Abies excelsa), 

 which occurs as a fossil only in Postpliocene beds. Its existence in 

 the Miocene period only in such a high latitude would indicate that it is 

 a polar form which has migrated southward in more recent times. 



