CHiiP. IX.j 
MILD AECTIC CLIMATES. 
181 
distinct geological horizons, and have been found widely scattered 
within the Arctic circle, yet nowhere has any proof been obtained 
of intercalated cold periods, such as would be indicated by the 
remains of a stunted vegetation, or a molluscan fauna similar 
to that which now prevails there. 
Stratigraphical Evidence of long-continued mild Arctic con- 
ditions . — Let us now turn to the stratigraphical evidence, which, 
as we have already shown, offers a crucial test of the occurrence 
or non-occurrence of glaciation during any extensive geological 
period ; and here we have the testimony of perhaps the greatest 
living authority on Arctic geology — Professor Nordenskjold. In 
his lecture on “ The Former Climate of the Polar Regions ” he 
says : “ The character of the coasts in the Arctic regions is 
especially favourable to geological investigations. While the 
valleys are for the most part filled with ice, the sides of the 
mountains in summer, even in the 80th degree of latitude, and 
to a height of 1,000 or 1,500 feet above the level of the sea, are 
almost wholly free from snow. Nor are the rocks covered with 
any amount of vegetation worth mentioning ; and, moreover, the 
sides of the mountains on the shore itself frequently present 
perpendicular sections, which everywhere expose their bare 
surfaces to the investigator. The knowledge of a mountain’s 
geognostic character, at which one, in the more southerly 
countries, can only arrive after long and laborious researches, 
removal of soil and the like, is here gained almost at the first 
glance ; and as we have never seen in Spitzbergen nor in Green- 
land, in these sections often many miles in length, and including 
one may say all formations from the Silurian to the Tertiary, 
any boulders even as large as a child’s head, there is not the 
smallest probability that strata of any considerable extent, con- 
taining boulders, are to be found in the polar tracts previous to 
the middle of the Tertiary period. Since, then, both an exami- 
nation of the geognostic condition, and an investigation of the 
fossil flora and fauna of the polar lands, show no signs of a 
glacial era having existed in those parts before the termination 
of the Miocene period, we are fully justified in rejecting, on the 
evidence of actual observation, the hypotheses founded on 
purely theoretical speculations, which assume the many times 
