CHAP. IX.] 
MILD ARCTIC CLIMATES. 
177 
The Miocene flora of temperate Europe was very like that of 
Eastern Asia, Japan, and the warmer part of Eastern North 
America of the present day. It is very richly represented in 
Switzerland by well preserved fossil remains, and after a close 
comparison with the flora of other countries Professor Heer 
concludes that the Swiss Lower Miocene flora indicates a climate 
corresponding to that of Louisiana, North Africa, and South 
China, while the Upper Miocene climate of the same country 
would correspond to that of the south of Spain, Southern 
Japan, and Georgia (U.S. of America). Of this latter flora, 
found chiefly at CEninghen in the northern extremity of 
Switzerland, 465 species are known, of which 166 species are 
trees or shrubs, half of them being evergreens. They comprise 
sequoias like the California giant trees, camphor-trees, cinna- 
mons, sassafras, bignonias, cassias, gleditschias, tulip-trees, and 
many other American genera, together with maples, ashes, 
planes, oaks, poplars, and other familiar European trees repre- 
sented by a variety of extinct species. If we now go to the 
west coast of Greenland in 70° N. Lat., we find abundant 
remains of a flora of the same general type as that of CEninghen 
but of a more northern character. We have a sequoia identical 
with one of the species found at CEninghen, a chestnut, salisburia, 
liquidambar, and sassafras, and even a magnolia. We have also 
seven species of oaks, two planes, two vines, three, beeches, 
four poplars, two willows, a walnut, a plum, and several shrubs, 
supposed to be evergreens; altogether 137 species, mostly well 
and abundantly preserved ! 
But even further north, in Spitzbergen, in 78° and 79° N. 
Lat. and one of the most barren and inhospitable regions ou 
the globe, an almost equally rich fossil flora has been discovered 
including several of the Greenland species, and others peculiar, 
but mostly of the same genera. There seem to be no ever- 
greens here except coniferse, one of which is identical with the 
swamp-cypress ( Taxodium distichum ) now found living in the 
Southern United States ! There are also eleven pines, two 
Libocedrus, two sequoias, with oaks, poplars, birches, planes, 
limes, a hazel, an ash, and a walnut; also water-lilies, pond- 
weeds, and an iris — altogether about a hundred species of 
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