"This delightful climate was not confined to the present temperate or
tropical regions. It extended to the very shores of the Arctic Sea.
In _North_ Greenland, at Atane-Kerdluk, in latitude 70° north, at an
elevation of more than a thousand feet above the sea, were found the
remains of beeches, oaks, pines, poplars, maples, _walnuts,
magnolias, limes_, and _vines_. The remains of similar plants were
found in Spitzbergen, in latitude 78° 56'."[3]

Dr. Dawson continues:

"Was the Miocene period on the whole a better age of the world than
that in which we live? In some respects it was. Obviously, there was
in the northern hemisphere a vast surface of land under a mild and
equable climate, and clothed with a rich and varied vegetation. Had
we lived in the Miocene we might have sat under our own vine and
fig-tree equally in Greenland and Spitzbergen and in those more
southern climes to which this

[1. "Popular Science Monthly," October, 1878, p. 648.

2. L. P. Gratacap, in "American Antiquarian," July, 1881, p. 280.

3. Dawson, "Earth and Man," p. 261.]

{p. 45}

privilege is now restricted. . . . Some reasons have been adduced for
the belief that in the Miocene and Eocene there were intervals of
cold climate; but the evidence of this may be merely local and