stration: Fig. 19.--Erect Tree containing Reptilian remains.
Coal-measures, Nova Scotia. (After Dawson.)

In many cases fossils enable us to come to important conclusions
as to the climate of the period in which they lived but only a
few instances of this can be here adduced. As fossils in the
majority of instances are the remains of marine animals, it is
mostly the temperature of the sea which can alone be determined
in this way; and it is important to remember that, owing to the
existence of heated currents, the marine climate of a given area
does not necessarily imply a correspondingly warm climate in
the neighbouring land. Land-climates can only be determined by
the remains of land-animals or land-plants, and these are
comparatively rare as fossils. It is also important to remember
that all conclusions on this head are really based upon the present
distribution of animal and vegetable life on the globe, and are
therefore liable to be vitiated by the following considerations:--

a. Most fossils are extinct, and it is not certain that the
habits and requirements of any extinct animal were exactly similar
to those of its nearest living relative.

b. When we get very far back in time, we meet with groups of
organisms so unlike anything we know at the present day as to
render all conjectures as to climate founded upon their supposed
habits more or less uncertain and unsafe.

c. In the case of marine animals, we are as yet very far from
knowing the exact limits of distribution of many species within
our present seas; so that conclusions drawn from living forms
as to extinct species are apt to prove incorrect. For instance,
it has recently been shown that many shells formerly believed to
be confined to the Arctic Seas have, by reason of the extension
of Polar currents, a wide range to the south; and this has thrown
doubt upon the conclusions drawn from fossil shells as to the
Arctic conditions under which certain beds were supposed to have
been deposited.

d. The distribution of animals at the present day is certainly
dependent upon other conditions beside climate alone; and the causes
which now limit the range of given animals are certainly such as
belong to the existing order of things. But the establishment of
the present order of things does not date back in many cases to
the introduction of the present species of animals. Even in the
case, therefore, of existing species of animals, it can often
be shown that t