CHAP. IX.] 



MILD AECTIC CLIMATES. 



177 



The Miocene flora of temperate Europe was very like that of 

 Eastern Asia, Japan, and the warmer part of Eastern North 

 America of the present day. It is very richly represented in 

 Switzerland by well preserved fossil remains, and after a close 

 comparison with the flora of other countries Professor Heer 

 concludes that the Swiss Lower Miocene flora indicates a climate 

 corresponding to that of Louisiana, North Africa, and South 

 China, while the Upper Miocene climate of the same country 

 would correspond to that of the south of Spain, Southern 

 Japan, and Georgia (U.S. of America). Of this latter flora, 

 found chiefly at CEninghen in the northern extremity of 

 Switzerland, 465 species are known, of which 166 species are 

 trees or shrubs, half of them being evergreens. They comprise 

 sequoias like the California giant trees, camphor-trees, cinna- 

 mons, sassafras, bignonias, cassias, gieditschias, tulip- trees, and 

 many other American genera, together with maples, ashes, 

 planes, oaks, poplars, and other familiar European trees repre- 

 sented by a variety of extinct species. If we now go to the 

 west coast of Greenland in 70° N. Lat., we find abundant 

 remains of a flora of the same general type as that of (Eninghen 

 but of a more northern character. We have a sequoia identical 

 with one of the species found at (Eninghen, a chestnut, salisburia, 

 liquidambar, and sassafras, and even a magnolia. We have also 

 seven species of oaks, two planes, two vines, three beeches, 

 four poplars, two willows, a walnut, a plum, and several shrubs, 

 supposed to be evergreens; altogether 137 species, mostly well 

 and abundantly preserved ! 



But even further north, in Spitzbergen, in 78° and 79° N. 

 Lat. and one of the most barren and inhospitable regions od 

 the globe, an almost equally rich fossil flora has been discovered 

 including several of the Greenland species, and others peculiar, 

 but mostly of the same genera. There seem to be no ever- 

 greens here except coniferse, one of which is identical with the 

 swamp-cypress {Taxodium distichum) now found living in the 

 Southern United States ! There are also eleven pines, two 

 Libocedrus, two sequoias, with oaks, poplars, birches, planes, 

 limes, a hazel, an ash, and a walnut; also water-lilies, pond- 

 weeds, and an iris — altogether about a hundred species of 



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