rry Islands in 77deg N. Lat.

In the still earlier Triassic age, nautili and ammonites inhabited the seas
of Spitzbergen, where their fossil remains are now found.

In the Carboniferous formation we again meet with plant-remains and beds of
true coal in the Arctic regions. Lepidodendrons and Calamites, together
with large spreading ferns, are found at Spitzbergen, and at Bear Island in
the extreme north of Eastern Siberia; while marine deposits of the same age
contain abundance of large stony corals.

Lastly, the ancient Silurian limestones, which are widely spread in the
high Arctic regions, contain abundance of corals and cephalopodous mollusca
resembling those from the same deposits in more temperate lands.

_Conclusions as to the Climates of Tertiary and Secondary Periods._--If now
we look at the whole series of geological facts as to the animal and
vegetable productions of the Arctic regions in past ages, it is certainly
difficult to avoid the conclusion that they indicate a climate of a
uniformly temperate or warm character. Whether in Miocene, Upper or Lower
Cretaceous, Jurassic, Triassic, Carboniferous or Silurian times, and in all
the numerous localities extending over more than half the polar regions, we
find one uniform climatic aspect in the fossils. This is quite inconsistent
with the theory of alternate cold and mild epochs during phases of high
excentricity, and persistent cold epochs when the excentricity was as low
as it is now or lower, for that would imply that the duration of cold
conditions was _greater_ than that of warm. Why then should the fauna and
flora of the cold epochs _never_ be {92} preserved? Mollusca and many other
forms of life are abundant in the Arctic seas, and there is often a
luxuriant dwarf woody vegetation on the land, yet in no one case has a
single example of such a fauna or flora been discovered of a date anterior
to the last glacial epoch. And this argument is very much strengthened when
we remember that an exactly analogous series of facts is found over all the
temperate zones. Everywhere we have abundant floras and faunas indicating
warmer conditions than such as now prevail, but never in a single instance
one which as clearly indicates colder conditions. The fact that drift with
Arctic shells was deposited during the last glacial epoch, as well as
gravels and crag with the remains of arctic animals and plants, shows us
that there is nothing to prevent such deposits being