CHAP. IX.] 



MILD AECTIC CLIMATES. 



181 



distinct geological horizons, and have been found widely scattered 

 within the Arctic circle, yet nowhere has any proof been obtained 

 of intercalated cold periods, such as would be indicated by the 

 remains of a stunted vegetation, or a molluscan fauna similar 

 to that which now prevails there. 



Stratigraphical Evidence of long-contimted mild Arctic con- 

 ditions. — Let us now turn to the stratigraphical evidence, which, 

 as we have already shown, offers a crucial test of the occurrence 

 or non-occurrence of glaciation during any extensive geological 

 period ; and here we have the testimony of perhaps the greatest 

 living authority on Arctic geology — Professor Nordenskjold. In 

 his lecture on " The Former Climate of the Polar Regions " he 

 says : " The character of the coasts in the Arctic regions is 

 especially favourable to geological investigations. While the 

 valleys are for the most part filled with ice, the sides of the 

 mountains in summer, even in the 80th degree of latitude, and 

 to a height of 1,000 or 1,500 feet above the level of the sea, are 

 almost wholly free from snow. Nor are the rocks covered with 

 any amount of vegetation worth mentioning ; and, moreover, the 

 sides of the mountains on the shore itself frequently present 

 perpendicular sections, which everywhere expose their bare 

 surfaces to the investigator. The knowledge of a mountain's 

 geognostic character, at which one, in the more southerly 

 countries, can only arrive after long and laborious researches, 

 removal of soil and the like, is here gained almost at the first 

 glance ; and as we have never seen in Spitzbergen nor in Green- 

 land, in these sections often many miles in length, and including 

 one may say all formations from the Silurian to the Tertiary, 

 any boulders even as large as a child's head, there is not the 

 smallest probability that strata of any considerable extent, con- 

 taining boulders, are to be found in the polar tracts previous to 

 the middle of the Tertiary period. Since, then, both an exami- 

 nation of the geognostic condition, and an investigation of the 

 fossil flora and fauna of the polar lands, show no signs of a 

 glacial era having existed in those parts before the termination 

 of the Miocene period, we are fully justified in rejecting, on the 

 evidence of actual observation, the hypotheses founded on 

 purely theoretical speculations, which assume the many times 



