I’liEai dent’s address. 
153 
in the distribution of climate Avhich these facts present to the 
geologist.”* 
I must, even at the risk of detaining you longer than I could 
have wished, refer to some of the late Professor Oswald Ileer’s 
remarks on the collection of Miocene plants that I made in 
Grinnell Land, for they have a most important bearing on the 
main point of my address to you this evening. “ The Cupressinem 
> are represented in Grinnell Land only by a Thuites {T. Elirenmardi, 
lleer), fine twigs of w’hich were found in King’s Bay, Spitsbergen 
(lat 70° K.), but has only reached us from Grinnell Land in the 
form of one small fragment which cannot be determined witli 
perfect certainty. On the other hand, the leaf-covered tAvigs of 
Taxodiiim distiehnm miocopimm, Avdiich is one of the most abundant 
plants of Grinnell Land, and appears in many varieties, are most 
beautifully preserved. Portunately we have it in a shite of bloom 
from this place, as from Cape Staratschin, viz., the male flowers, 
which completely correspond with those of Spitsbergen. They 
show that this remarkable tree, now existing only in the United 
States, and in ^fexico, lived and bloomed during the Miocene 
period almost as far north as 82° ! . . . It is a very interest- 
ing fact that in Grinnell Land two twigs of the Spruce (Pinns abici*, 
Linn.) still covered ivith leaves ivere found. I had already received 
single detached loaves from Spitsbergen ; ivitli them ivere seeds of 
this species, and further, there was also found a scale of the cone, 
so that the species could be determined with perfect certainty. 
M'e therefore see that our Spruce (Red Fir) was living during the 
Pliocene period in Grinnell Land as well as in Korth Spitsbergen, 
and at that time doubtless extended as far as the Pole, at least if 
any dry land tlien existed there. In Europe the tree did not then 
exist ; hence very jirobably it had its original home in the extreme 
north, and has thence extended southwards. "We first meet it in 
Europe in the Forest-bed of the Korfolk coast, and in the inter- 
glacial deposits of lignite in Switzerland. At that time, therefore, it 
had come into our regions, and has ever since formed a principal 
constituent of our forests. Its extreme northern limit is now in 
* ‘ Text Book of Geology,’ p. 808. 
