A survey of tl.e Phytogeography of the Arctic American Archipelago i-»» 
it seeiiis to have been more iiearly contemporaneous witli the end of the warm 
period, and tlie two canses may have worked together. 
The elevation of the land of course must have had a certain influence on 
the climate, but for the plants it has hardly been disadvantageous more than in 
one respect, vi.,, in reducing the evaporating area and, consequently, the amount 
of precipitation. A more continental dimate is otherways not adverse to the thrivmg 
of vegetation, as shown, for instance, by the luxuriaut inland plantlife around Lake 
Hazen and at most Kinguas. But if it can be proved that, from sorae cause or 
other, a more congenial dimate has once prevailed and then given way to a colder 
period again, traces ought certninly to appear in the present vegetation, showing 
its effects For noithern Europé the existence of such a period, warmer than the 
present, is a wdl estabhshed fact, but in America few proofs are brought forward 
as yet As far as the Continent is concerned Canadian geologists even seem to be 
most inclined to deny any osdllation in the amehoration of dimate in postglacial 
time, for instance Tyrbell, NW Canada, and M'Connell, Yukon. The occurrence 
of a warm time, an interglacial period, before the final disappearance of the great 
icesheets I leave quite out of the question, as no indication af any such interval is 
ever found withiu the Arctic Archipelago or on the adjacent coast of the Continent. 
The only intimation about a warmer postglacial period in Arctic America 1 
have been able to look up is to be found in Bell's previously quoted Glac. Phenom., 
p. 307, but from Greenland several exist. As these records are collected and 
discussed by Jensen and Haeder, it may be enough to refer to thdr paper, Changes 
Aret. Reg., and mention that among the facts they reläte from different parts of 
the Arctic Regions none have direct reference to the Arctic Archipelago. But the 
existence in Greenland of clays with southern shells, above those with Yoldia arctica 
and other higharctic forms, tends to confirm the statements previously (p. 30) 
referred to about subfossil occurrence in the Archipelago of Cyprina islandica which 
still Un-ers at the coast of southern Greenland. The appearance of plants, requiring 
a comparatively warm summer, in single shdtered localities far northward along 
both coasts of Greenland, in my opinion also points to such a period for its ex- 
planation The sensitive Kingua-plants of Scoresby Sound (and the other large 
fjords of northeastern Greenland) which Hartz, Fan. og Karkrypt., p. 389, speaks 
of certainly can only have reached tbere under inauence of a more congenial 
climate than that which now rules along the outer coast which they must have 
passed in thdr migration. * a i • 
When an inquiry about such reUct vegetations and species m the Arctic Archi- 
pdago is to be made, I wiU restrict it to the EUesmereland flora. Two circura- 
stances speak in favör of such a restriction. EUesmereland is the northernmost of 
the islands and consequently relicts ought to be more easily discerned m its flora 
than in that of a more southern region with a longer and warmer summer, and its 
flora may be looked upon as the most completely studied withm the whole area 
No less than 29 species in the EUesmereland flora, or nearly 26 pct., are restncted 
