182 



ISLAND LIFE 



PART I 



epochs of glaciation far exceeding what now prevails ; and 

 it is therefore necessary to examine the evidence pretty 

 closely in order to see if this view is more tenable in the 

 case of the north polar regions than we have found it to 

 be in that of the north temperate zone. 



The most recent of these milder climates is perhaps 

 indicated by the abundant remains of large mammalia — 

 such as the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison and horse, 

 in the icy alluvial plains of Northern Siberia, and especially 

 in the Liakhov Islands in the same latitude as the North 

 Cape of Asia. These remains occur not in one or two 

 spots only, as if collected by eddies at the mouth of a 

 river, but along the whole borders of the Arctic Ocean; 

 and it is generally admitted that the animals must have 

 lived upon the adjacent plains, and that a considerably 

 milder climate than now prevails could alone have enabled 

 them to do so. How long ago this occurred we do not know, 

 but one of the last intercalated mild periods of the glacial 

 epoch itself seems to offer all the necessary conditions. 

 Again, Sir Edward Belcher discovered on the dreary shores 

 of Wellington Channel in 75J° N. Lat. the trunk and root 

 of a fir tree which had apparently grown where it was found. 

 It appeared to belong to the species Abies alba, or white 

 fir, which now reaches 68° N. Lat. and is the most northerly 

 conifer known. Similar trees, one four feet in circum- 

 ference and thirty feet long, were found by Lieut. Mecham in 

 Prince Patrick's Island in Lat. 76° 12' N., and other Arctic 

 explorers have found remains of trees in high latitudes.^ 



Similar indications of a recent milder climate are found 

 in Spitzbergen. Professor Nordenskjold says : " At various 

 places on Spitzbergen, at the bottom of Lomme Bay, at 

 Cape Thordsen, in Blomstrand's strata in Advent Bay, 

 there are found large and well-developed shells of a bivalve, 

 Mytilus edulis, which is not now found living on the coast 

 of Spitzbergen, though on the west coast of Scandinavia it 

 everywhere covers the rocks near the sea- shore. These 

 shells occur most plentifully in the bed of a river which 

 runs through Keindeer Valley at Cape Thordsen. They 



^ Colonel Fielden thinks that these trees have all been brought down 

 by rivers, and have been stranded on shores which have been recently 

 elevated. See Trans, of Norfolk Nat. Hist. Soc, Vol. III., 1880. 



