I.—On the Influence of the Gulf Stream

• Published in: Geological Magazine
• Main Author: H. W.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1868
• Subjects: Geology; Canada; Greenland; Heer; Iceland; North Greenland; Spitzbergen
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0016756800204834; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0016756800204834

The last number of the Geological Magazine contained a translation (by Mr. J. E. Lee, F.S.A., F.G.S., of Caerleon) of two lectures by Dr. Oswald Heer, “On the Miocene Flora of the Polar Regions,” in which the author gives the results of his investigation of the fossil plant-remains from the Tertiary deposits of the north of Canada, Banksland, North Greenland, Iceland, and Spitzbergen. His examination has led him to conclude that, amongst them, there were nine large plants of the fern tribe, 78 kinds of trees, and 50 shrubs. Among these, the remains of the beech and the chestnut, like those of our own island, the silver fir, spruce fir, and Scotch fir, the white pine of Canada, the Sequoia of California, the cypress and Salisburia of Japan, the oak of temperate N. America, the poplar, plane-tree, birch, tulip-tree, the walnut, lime-tree, and magnolia have left their remains where they had grown, attesting a once temperate climate in Tertiary times, where now fields of snow and ice (once believed to be eternal) cover the length and breadth of the land.