_North Greenland._—During the Oolitic period a warm condition of
climate extended to North Greenland. For example, in Prince Patrick’s
Island, at Wilkie Point, in lat. 76° 20′ N., and long. 117° 20′
W., Oolitic rocks containing an ammonite (_Ammonites McClintocki_,
Haughton), like _A. concavus_ and other shells of Oolitic species,
were found by Captain McClintock.[180] In Katmai Bay, near Behring’s
Straits, the following Oolitic fossils were discovered—_Ammonites
Wasnessenskii_, _A. biplex_, _Belemnites paxillosus_, and _Unio
liassinus_.[181] Captain McClintock found at Point Wilkie, in Prince
Patrick’s Island, lat. 76° 20′, a bone of _Ichthyosaurus_, and Sir E.
Belcher found in Exmouth Island, lat. 76° 16′ N., and long. 96° W., at
an elevation of 570 feet above the level of the sea, bones which were
examined by Professor Owen, and pronounced to be those of the same
animal.[182] Mr. Salter remarks that at the time that these fossils
were deposited, “a condition of climate something like that of our own
shores was prevailing in latitudes not far short of 80° N.”[183] And
Mr. Jukes says that during the Oolitic period, “in latitudes where
now sea and land are bound in ice and snow throughout the year, there
formerly flourished animals and plants similar to those living in our
own province at that time. The questions thus raised,” continues Mr.
Jukes, “as to the climate of the globe when cephalopods and reptiles
such as we should expect to find only in warm or temperate seas,
could live in such high latitudes, are not easy to answer.”[184] And
Professor Haughton remarks, that he thinks it highly improbable that
any change in the position of land and water could ever have produced a
temperature in the sea at 76° north latitude which would allow of the
existence of ammonites, especially species so like those that lived
at the same time in the tropical warm seas of the South of England
and France at the close of the Liassic, and commencement of the Lower
Oolitic period.[185]
The great abundance of the limestone and coal of the Oolitic system
shows also the warm and equable condition of the climate which must
have then prevailed.
CRETACEOUS PERIOD.
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