president’s address. 
133 
was, once the most severely glaciated portion of our own islands. 
From 67 to 71° N. Lat. of the West Greenland Coast constitutes 
the Belt 1 ), the Disko Belt of Warming’s Tables, and from 54° to 58' 
N. Lat. the Belt of Great Britain, with which we will roughly 
compare it. The southern limit of this Belt, 54° N. Lat., passes 
approximately through Driffield, York, Harrogate, Skipton, and 
Lancaster; and the northern limit, '>8° X. Lat., includes the whole 
of the mainland of Scotland, excepting a very small portion of the 
county of Ross, almost all Sutherland, and the whole of Caithness, 
and also all the Hebrides, except the northernmost third of the 
Long Island. ( hie of the greatest differences between these belts 
is that the coast of West Greenland is swept by a cold Polar 
current bearing much ice, while that of Scotland is bathed by the 
warm water of the Gulf Stream ; but both have a western coast 
studded with islands, and indented by deep fiords. 
Surely it will hardly bo contended that the west coast of 
Scotland was ever more severely glaciated than is the coast of the 
Disko Belt at the present time, especially if it bo true, as 
Mr. Bulman thinks from the evidence of fossil shells, and the 
greater southern extension of ice-sheet in America than in Europe, 
that the Gulf Stream was in existence during the Glacial F.poch. 
Comparing Warming’s list of the flora of the Disko Belt with that 
of the British Belt (54 to 58°) as given in Top. Bot., ed. 2, we find 
that the former has 252 species, of which 157, more than half, 
are common to both, and that among these is included a very large 
proportion of what is commonly called the Arctic or Alpine Flora 
of Great Britain. Now, if these 157 species can hold their own 
under the present condition of the Disko Belt, why should they 
not have held their own in the Scotch Belt during the Glacial 
Epoch, and what need is there of any hypothesis of “ destruction ” 
and subsequent “re-immigration” to account for their presence? 
The actual state of things at Disko is thus described in the 
voyage of the “Alert” : — “July 7. The flowers by this date were 
fast bursting into bloom. The white-blossomed Cans lope tetragona 
gave quite a heathy look to the fells. Azalea procumbens, the 
* ‘Natural Science, ’ vol. iii. p. 261 (Oct. 1803). 
