more southerly regions. But a
complete and exact knowledge of which animal types are of glacial,
and which of Atlantic origin, is of the greatest importance, not
only for zoology and the geography of animals, but also for the
geology of Scandinavia, and especially for the knowledge of our
loose earthy layers.

Few scientific discoveries have so powerfully captivated the
interest, both of the learned and unlearned, as that of the colossal
remains of elephants, sometimes well preserved, with flesh and hair,
in the frozen soil of Siberia. Such discoveries have more than once
formed the object of scientific expeditions, and careful researches
by eminent men; but there is still much that is enigmatical with
respect to a number of circumstances connected with the mammoth
period of Siberia, which _perhaps_ was contemporaneous with our
glacial period. Specially is our knowledge of the animal and
vegetable types, which lived contemporaneously with the mammoth,
exceedingly incomplete, although we know that in the northernmost
parts of Siberia, which are also most inaccessible from land, there
are small hills covered with the bones of the mammoth and other
contemporaneous animals, and that there is found everywhere in that
region so-called Noah's wood, that is to say, half-petrified or
carbonised vegetable remains from several different geological
periods.

Taking a general view of the subject, we see that an investigation,
as complete as possibly, of the geology of the Polar countries, so
difficult of access, is a condition indispensable to a knowledge of
the former history of our globe. In order to prove this I need only
point to the epoch-making influence which has been exerted on
geological theories by the discovery, in the rocks and earthy layers
of the Polar countries, of beautiful fossil plants from widely
separated geological periods. In this field too our expedition to
the north coast of Siberia ought to expect to reap abundant
harvests. There are besides to be found in Siberia, strata which
have been deposited almost contemporaneously with the coal-bearing
formations of South Sweden, and which therefore contain animal and
vegetable petrifications which just now are of very special interest
for geological science in our own country, with reference to the
discoveries of splendid fossil plants which of late years have been
made at several places among us, and give us so lively an idea of
the sub-tropical vegetation whic