267 
GREENLAND. 
By WILLIAM PEXGELLY, F.R.S., F.G.S. 
EOGRAPHERS and geologists have for some time devoted 
a large amount of attention and labour to Greenland ; 
and, judging from the numerous reports and papers on it, 
which have been read to various scientific bodies, it must be 
admitted that their efforts have been crowned with great 
success. Of these communications, those which have most 
recently arrested our attention are Professor Heer s “ Contribu- 
tions to the Fossil Flora of North Greenland,” read to the 
Royal Society of London on March 11, 1869,* and Dr. Brown’s 
“ Physics of Arctic Ice,” read to the Geological Society of 
London on June 22, 1870,f the latter treating of the country 
as it is at present, and the former of its condition during the 
Miocene period of the geologist. 
From time to time, Arctic voyagers — especially McClintock, 
Inglefield, Colomb, and Olrick — have brought from Greenland 
considerable collections of fossil plants, which have been lodged 
in the museums of London, Dublin, and Copenhagen. They 
have attracted so much attention, and their revelations have 
been so startling, as to induce the Royal Society of London and 
the British Association to vote, in 1866, liberal grants of 
money for the purpose of investigating the fossiliferous beds, 
and making as complete a collection as possible of the remains 
of the plants which they contain. The expedition was en- 
trusted to Mr. E. Whymper, so well known for his Alpine 
researches, and Dr. Brown, who had previously travelled in 
Arctic North America, Greenland, and Spitzbergen, and had 
availed himself of the ample opportunities he had thus enjoyed 
for studying ice phenomena. 
They reached the colony of Jacobshavn, in Greenland, on 
June 16, 1867, and left the island on the 10th of the following 
September, having received, during their stay, every assistance 
* See “Phil. Trans.” for 1869, Pt. II. pp. 445-488. 
t See “Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.” vol. xxvi. pp. 671-701. 
