president’s address. 
1j1 
sea. All is not duo to supposed changes in the direction of the 
earth’s axis or place of the pole. Wo have yet to learn something 
of the physical geography of the Northern Hemisphere during 
Palasozoic times, and the causes that produced the high temperature 
of the Arctic Seas during and between the Paheozoic and Miocene 
periods.” 
I have dilated so far on the Palreozoic conditions of the Polar 
Sea, to show that, at that period, an ocean with a temperature 
ecjual to that of our Pacific and Atlantic, under the equator, 
circulated around the North Pole; and it seems <iuitc impossible 
to account for the present great difference of temperature by any 
change in the warm oceanic currents, but that it must bo duo 
to the secular cooling of the globe, which commenced first at the 
Poles. 
The great development of Carboniferous Limestone, with its 
abundant fossil remains, which I found in the most northern 
part of Grinnell Land, between 82° 43' and 82° 50' N. lat., 
and conseciuently the nearest known fossiliferous rocks to the 
North Pole, is underlain by Devonian rocks with fossils, which 
rest unconforinably on Azoic beds. The strike of the Carboniferous 
Limestone formation of Feilden Peninsula and Cape Joseph Henry 
is towards Franz Josef Land and Spitsbergen, from which latter 
country a rich fossil fauna of the same age is known and has been 
described by Toula, and therefore there can be no question that 
Carboniferous rocks must likewise underlie the Polar Sea. Docks 
belonging to the Secondary epoch, have been found in many 
portions of the Arctic area. Liassic fossils were long ago discovered 
by Lieutenant Anjou, of the Eussian navy, in the New Siberian 
I.-slands ; and at Point Wilkie, and other localities in the 
Parry Archipelago, patches of Lias with a rich fauna occur. 
Saurians have been discovered in Spitsbergen, in beds referable to 
the Trias and Lias. Saurian vertebraj were found in the Lias beds 
of Eathurst Island. Jurassic rocks have been examined in 
Alaska. On the east coast of Greenland, Payer and Copeland 
discovered marls an.1 sandstones, with a fauna resembling the 
Eu.ssian Jurassics. IJeds of Cretaceous age exist on the northern 
