62 



BOREAL PROVINCE. 



meeting and mingling ground of the Arctic and 

 Celtic faunas. Professor Loven * remarks that the 

 Scandinavian Seas " belong to two different regions, 

 in the south the Germanic, in the north the Arctic. 

 The fauna of the German Ocean prevails from the 

 Sound to about the promontory of Stadt, on the 

 coast of Norway, and decreases from thence to the 

 Westfiord (Loffoden Islands) north of which it is 

 subordinate to the Arctic fauna, which predominates 

 from the North Cape to the Mitfiord, mingles with 

 the Germanic to about Bergen, and decreases south 

 of that point till it reaches its minimum on the 

 coast of Bohuslan (Sweden). The character of the 

 Germanic fauna is European, that of the Arctic, 

 Atlantic. But a time was," continues my valued 

 correspondent, "when the Arctic fauna extended 

 over the whole of our peninsula down to its southern 

 parts, as is proved by the fossils in raised sea-beds 

 and pliocene strata, which, in places near the actual 

 sea, are of species now living there ; but further 

 inland, of species now existing in the northernmost 

 parts of Scandinavia, or only in the seas of Spitz- 

 bergen and Greenland, or even in some few cases, 

 perhaps, extinct, and at these localities all the more 

 southern species of the present German Ocean are 

 wanting. Now this ancient Arctic fauna indicates 

 an Arctic climate over the whole of Scandinavia. 

 It is probable, that the currents of the sea during 

 that period, were Polar currents, with a general 

 * In Letter, January 1847. 



