Chapter XXII: Appendix: No. I (2)

1. Beautiful specimens of the _Cromus Arcticus_. Pl. VI. Fig. 5,
Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I.
2. _Orthoceras Griffithi._ Pl. V. Fig. 1, Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I.
3. An Orthoceras with lateral siphuncle, and simple circular outline
of septa.
4. _Loxonema Rossi._ Pl. V. Figs. 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, Journ. R. D. S.,
Vol. I.
5. Numerous specimens of crinoidal limestone.
6. _Strophomena Donnetti_ (Salter). Sutherland's Voyage; Pl. V.
Figs. 11, 12.
7. _Atrypa phoca_ (Salter). Pl. V. Figs. 3, 4, 7, Journ. R. D. S.,
Vol. I.; and a ribbed Atrypa, not identified with European
species, and undescribed.
8. An undescribed bryozoan Zoophyte. Pl. VII. Fig. 6, Journ.
R. D. S.,Vol. I.
9. _Calophyllum Phragmoceras_ (Salter). Sutherland; Pl. VI. Fig. 4.
10. _Syringopora geniculata._
11. An undescribed species of _Macrocheilus_.

No. IV. BEECHEY ISLAND. (Lat. 74° 40' N.; Long. 92° W.).

1. Orthoceras (species).
2. Great multitudes of _Atrypa phoca_, forming, in fact, a
dark-colored earthly Atrypa limestone.
3. With these were associated many species of Loxonema, sometimes so
abundant as to form a pale pink and whitish Loxonema limestone.
4. A species of ribbed Atrypa.
5. Crinoidal limestone in abundance.
6. _Syringopora reticulata._
7. _Calophyllum phragmoceras_ (Salter). Sutherland; Pl. VI. Fig. 4.
8. _Cyathophyllum cæspitosum._
9. _Cyathophyllum articulatum_ (Edwardes and Haime).
10. _Calamopora Gothlandica._
11. _Calamopora alveolaris._
12. _Favistella Franklini_ (Salter). Sutherland; Pl. VI. Fig. 3.
13. _Clisiophyllum Salteri._ Sutherland; Pl. VI. Fig. 7.
14. _Cyathophyllum_ (species).
15. _Loxonema Salteri_, described by Mr. Slater in Sutherland's
'Voyage to Wellington Channel;' Pl. V. Fig. 19.

This is a fine slab of limestone, almost together composed of the
remains of _Loxonema Salteri_ and _Atrypa phoca_. It appears to have
been quietly deposited at the bottom of a deep submarine depression,
swarming with Pyramidellidæ and deep-water Brachiopoda. The physical
conditions indicated by the fossils are also rendered probable by
the rock itself, which consists of fine grey limestone,
subcrystalline, and intimately blended with the finest and most
delicate description of mud, such as could only be found where the
water was deep, and all currents far removed.

No. V. CORNWALLIS ISLAND, Assistance Bay (Lat 74° 40' N.; Long. 94° W.).

1. _Orthoceras Ommaneyi_ (Salter). Sutherland; Pl. V. Figs. 16, 17.
2. _Pentamerus conchidium_ (Dalman). Sutherland; Pl. V. Figs. 9, 10.
3. Pentamerus limestone.
4. _Cromus Arcticus._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. VI.
5. _Cardiola Salteri._ Pl. VII. Fig. 5. Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I.
6. _Syringopora geniculata._

No. VI. CAPE YORK, Lancaster Sound (Lat. 73° 50' N.; Long. 87° W.).

A specimen of the same fossil coral which I have named, doubtfully,
from Beechey Island, as Favosites or _Calamopora Gothlandica_; it is
not impossible, however, that it is not a Calamopora at all, but a
species of Chætetes.

No. VII. POSSESSION BAY, South entrance into Lancaster Sound (Lat. 73° 30' N.; Long. 77° 20' W.).

Specimens of brown earthy limestone, with a fetid smell when struck
with a hammer; resembles closely the limestone of Cape York,
Lancaster Sound.

No. VIII. DEPÔT BAY, Bellot Strait (Lat. 72° N.; Long. 94° W.).

1. _Maclurea_ sp.
2. _Cyathophyllum helianthoides_ (Goldfuss).

The limestone at this locality is white and saccharoid, with large
rhombohedral crystals of calcspar.

[31]No. IX. CAPE FARRAND, East side of Boothia (Lat. 71° 38'; Long. 93° 35' W.).

1. _Atrypa phoca_ (Salter). Sutherland; Pl. V. Fig. 3.
2. _Loxonema Rossi._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. V.
3. _Atrypa_ (ribbed sp.)
4. _Calamopora Gothlandica_ (Goldfuss).
5. _Cyrtoceras_ sp.

The rock at this locality is a grey mud limestone.

No. X. WEST SHORE OF BOOTHIA (Lat. 70° to 71° N.), containing the Magnetic Pole.

1. _Atrypa phoca_ (Salter).
2. _Loxonema Rossi._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. V.
3. _Favistella Franklini_ (Salter). Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. XI.
4. _Loxonema Salteri._ Sutherland; Pl. V. Fig. 18.

The cream-colored chalky limestone found on the west side of Prince
of Wales' Island here occurs, and is generally destitute of fossils,
like that of Prince of Wales' Land.

[32]No. XI. FURY POINT (Lat. 72° 50' N.; Long. 92° W.).

1. _Cromus Arcticus._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. VI.
2. _Maclurea_ sp.
3. _Mya rotundata_ (?).
4. _Stromatopora concentrica._
5. _Cyathophyllum helianthoides_ (Goldfuss).
6. _Petraia bina._
7. _Calamopora Gothlandica_ (Goldfuss).
8. _Favosites megastoma (?)._
9. _Cyathophyllum cæspitosum._
10. _Favistella Franklini_ (Salter). Sutherland; Pl. VI. Fig. 3.
11. _Strephodes Austini_ (Salter). Sutherland; Pl. VI. Fig. 6.
12. _Atrypa phoca_ (Salter).

The limestone here is of the same grey earthy aspect as at Beechey
Island and Port Leopold.

[33]No. XII. PRINCE OF WALES' LAND (Lat. 72° 38' N.; Long. 97° 15' W.).

1. _Cyathophyllum_ sp.
2. _Calamopora Gothlandica_ (Goldfuss).
3. _Stromatopora concentrica._

These fossils occur in grey earthy limestone, near its junction with
the red arenaceous limestone already described.

No. XIII. WEST COAST OF KING WILLIAM'S ISLAND.

1. _Loxonema Rossi._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol I. Pl. V.
2. _Catenipora escharoides._
3. _Orthoceras_ sp.
4. _Maclurea_ sp.
5. _Atrypa_ sp.
6. _Syringopora geniculata._
7. _Clisiophyllum_ sp.
8. _Orthis elegantula._

III.--_The Carboniferous Rocks._

The Upper Silurian limestones already described are succeeded by a most remarkable series of close-grained white sandstones, containing numerous beds of highly bituminous coal, and but few marine fossils. In fact, the only fossil shell found in these beds, so far as I know, in any part of the Arctic Archipelago, is a species of ribbed _Atrypa_, which I believe to be identical with the _Atrypa fallax_ of the carboniferous slate of Ireland. These sandstone beds are succeeded by a series of blue limestone beds, containing an abundance of the marine shells commonly found in all parts of the world where the carboniferous deposits are at all developed. The line of junction of these deposits with the Silurians on which they rest is N.E. to E.N.E. (true). Like the former they occur in low flat beds, sometimes rising into cliffs, but never reaching the elevation attained by the Silurian rocks in Lancaster Sound.

The following lists contain the principal fossils and specimens presented to the Royal Dublin Society by Captain M'Clintock and by Captain Sir Robert M'Clure.

Coal, sandstone, clay ironstone, and brown hematite, were found
along a line stretching E.N.E. from Baring Island, through the south
of Melville Island, Byam Martin's Island, and the whole of Bathurst
Island. Carboniferous limestone, with characteristic fossils, was
found along the north coast of Bathurst Island, and at Hillock
Point, Melville Island.

I have marked on the map the coal-beds of the Parry Islands, which appear to be prolonged into Baring Island, as observed by Captain M'Clure. The discovery of coal in these islands is due to Parry, but the evidence of the extent and quantity in which it may be found was obtained during the expeditions of Austin and Belcher. In addition to the localities surveyed by himself, Captain M'Clintock has given me specimens of the coal found at other places by other explorers; and it is from a comparison of all these specimens that I have ventured to lay down the outcrop of the coal-beds, which agrees remarkably well with the boundary of the formations laid down from totally different data.

No. I. HILLOCK POINT, Melville Island (Lat 76° N.; Long. 111° 45' W.).

_Productus sulcatus._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. VII. Figs. 1, 2,
3, 4, 7.
_Spirifer Arcticus._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. IX.

No. II. BATHURST ISLAND, North Coast, Cape Lady Franklin (?) (Lat. 76° 40' N.; Long. 98° 45' W.).

_Spirifer Arcticus._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. IX. Fig. 1.
_Lithostrotion basaltiforme._

[34]No. III. BALLAST BEACH, Baring Island (Lat. 74° 30' N.; Long. 121° W.).

1. Wood fossilized by brown hematite; structure quite distinct.
2. Cone of the spruce fir, fossilized by brown hematite.

No. IV. PRINCESS ROYAL ISLANDS, Prince of Wales' Strait, Baring Island (Lat. 72° 45' N.; Long. 117° 30' W.).

1. Nodules of clay ironstone, converted partially into brown hematite.
2. Native copper in large masses, procured from the Esquimaux in
Prince of Wales' Strait.
3. Brown hematite, pisolitic.
4. Greyish yellow sandstone, same as Cape Hamilton and Byam Martin's
Island.
5. _Terebratula aspera_ (Schlotheim). Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl.
IX. Fig. 4.

This interesting brachiopod was found in the limestone by Captain M'Clure, at the Princess Royal Islands, in the Prince of Wales' Strait, between Baring Island and Prince Albert Land. I have no hesitation in pronouncing it to be identical with Schlotheim's fossil, which is found in the greatest abundance at Gerolstein, in the Eifel. Banks Land, or Baring Island, is composed of sandstone, similar to that at Byam Martin's Island, and at the Bay of Mercy. This sandstone contains beds of coal, apparently the continuation of the well-known coal-beds of Melville Island. It is a remarkable fact, that these carboniferous sandstones _underlie_ beds of undoubtedly the carboniferous limestone type, and that at Byam Martin's Island, where fossils are found in this sandstone, they are allied to _Atrypa fallax_ and other forms characteristic of the lower sandstones of the carboniferous epoch. It is, therefore, highly probable that the coal-beds of Melville Island are very low down in the series, and do not correspond in geological position with the coal-beds of Europe, which rest on the summit of the carboniferous beds. It is interesting to find at Princess Royal Island, where, from the general strike of the beds, we should expect to find the Silurian limestone underlying the coal-bearing sandstones, that this limestone does occur, and contains a fossil, _T. aspera_, eminently characteristic of the Eifelian beds of Germany, which form, in that country, the Upper Silurian Strata.

No. V. CAPE HAMILTON, Baring Island (Lat. 74° 15' N.; Long. 117° 30' W.).

1. Greyish-yellow sandstone, like that found _in situ_ in Byam
Martin's Island.
2. _Coal._--The coal found in the Arctic regions, excepting that
brought from Disco Island, West Greenland, which is of tertiary
origin, presents everywhere the same characters, which are
somewhat remarkable. It is of a brownish color and ligneous
texture, in fine layers of brown coal and jet-black glossy coal
interstratified in delicate bands not thicker than paper. It
has a woody ring under the hammer, recalling the peculiar clink
of some of the valuable gas coals of Scotland. It burns with a
dense smoke and brilliant flame, and would make an excellent
gas coal; and, in fact, it resembles in many respects some
varieties of the coal which has acquired such celebrity in the
Scotch and Prussian law-courts, under the title of the Torbane
Hill mineral.

No. VI. CAPE DUNDAS, Melville Island (Lat. 74° 30' N.; Long. 113° 45' W.).

Fine specimens of coal.

No. VII. CAPE SIR JAMES ROSS, Melville Island (Lat. 74° 45' N.; Long. 114° 30' W.).

Sandstone passing into blue quartzite.

No. VIII. CAPE PROVIDENCE, Melville Island (Lat. 74° 20' N.; Long. 112° 30' W.).

A specimen of crinoidal limestone, apparently similar to that
occurring in Griffith's Island, from which, however, it could
not have been brought by the present drift of the floating ice,
as the set of the currents is constant from the west. If
brought to its present position by ice, it must have been under
circumstances differing considerably from those now prevailing
in Barrow's Strait.
Yellowish-grey sandstone.
Clay ironstone passing into pisolitic hematite.

No. IX. WINTER HARBOR, Melville Island (Lat. 74° 35' N.; Long. 110° 45' W.).

Fine yellow and grey sandstone.

No. X. BRIDPORT INLET, Melville Island (Lat. 75° N.;, Long. 109° W.).

Coal, with impressions of Sphenopteris.
Ferruginous spotted white sandstone.
Clay ironstone, passing into brown hematite.

No. XI. SKENE BAY, Melville Island (Lat. 75° N.; Long. 108° W.).

Bituminous coal, with finely divided laminæ, associated with brown
crystalline limestone, with cherty beds, and grey-yellowish
sandstone, passing into brownish-red sandstone.

No. XII. HOOPER ISLAND, Liddon's Gulf, Melville Island (Lat. 75° 5' N.; Long. 112° W.).

Nodules of clay ironstone, very pure and heavy, associated with
ferruginous fine sandstone and coal of the usual description.

The hill-tops and sides along the south shore of Liddon's Gulf, and as far as Cape Dundas, are generally bare, composed of frozen mud, arising from the disintegration of shale, the annual dissolving snows washing them down and giving them a rounded form. The southern slopes generally support vegetation. Fragments of coal are very frequently met with, and at the mouth of a ravine on the south shore of Liddon's Gulf there is abundance, of very good quality; it contains a considerable quantity of pyrites or bisulphuret of iron.

No. XIII. BYAM MARTIN'S ISLAND (Lat. 75° 10' N.; Long. 104° 15' W.).

Yellowish-grey sandstone, _in situ_, containing a ribbed _Atrypa_,
allied to the _A. primipilaris_ of V. Buch, and the _A. fallax_
of the carboniferous rocks of Ireland.
Reddish limestone, with broken fragments of shells, of the same
description of brachiopod as the last.
Coal of the usual description.
Fine-grained red sandstone, passing into red slate.
Scoriaceous hornblendic trap (boulders).

The sandstone of Byam Martin's Island is of two kinds--one red, finely stratified, passing into purple slate, and very like the red sandstone of Cape Bunny, North Somerset, and some varieties of the red sandstone and slate found between Wolstenholme Sound and Whale Sound, West Greenland, lat. 77° N. The other sandstone of Byam Martin's Island is fine, pale-greenish, or rather greyish-yellow, and not distinguishable in hand specimens from the sandstone of Cape Hamilton, Baring Island. It contains numerous shells and casts of a terebratuliform brachiopod, closely allied to the _Terebratula primipilaris_ of Von Buch, found abundantly at Gerolstein in the Eifel. On the whole, I incline to the opinion that the sandstones, limestone, and coal of Byam Martin's Island, are the corresponding rocks of Melville Island, Baring Island, and Bathurst Island, are low down in the Carboniferous System, and that there is in these northern coal-fields no subdivision into red sandstone, limestone, and coal-measures, such as prevails in the west of Europe. If the different points where coal was found be laid down on a map, we have in order, proceeding from the south-west--Cape Hamilton, Baring Island; Cape Dundas, Melville Island, south; Bridport Inlet and Skene Bay, Melville Island; Schomberg Point, Graham Moore Bay, Bathurst Island; a line joining all these points is the outcrop of the coal-beds of the south of Melville Island, and runs E.N.E. At all the localities above mentioned, and, indeed, in every place where coal was found, it was accompanied by the greyish-yellow and yellow sandstone already described, and by nodules of clay ironstone, passing into brown hematite, sometimes nodular and sometimes pisolitic in structure.

No. XIV. GRAHAM MOORE'S BAY, Bathurst Island (Lat. 75° 30' N.; Long. 102° W.).

Coal of the usual quality.

At Cape Lady Franklin, and at many other localities along the north shore of Bathurst Island, carboniferous fossils in limestone, clay ironstone balls passing into brown hematite, cherty limestone, and earthy fossiliferous limestone, with the same species of _Atrypa_ as at Byam Martin's Island, were found in abundance by Sherard Osborn, Esq., Commander of H.M.S. 'Pioneer,' in whose journal the following note respecting them may be found:--

"The above collection was delivered over to Captain Sir Edward Belcher, C.B., by Commander Richards, at 2 P.M., on 7th Nov. 1853."[35]

It is to be hoped that they may soon be made available for the elucidation of the geology of this most interesting portion of the Arctic discoveries.

No. XV. BATHURST ISLAND, Bedford Bay (Lat. 75° N.; Long. 95° 50' W.).

In this locality abundance of vesicular scoriaceous trap rocks were
found by Captain M'Clintock; they appear to me to be the
representatives of the volcanic rocks found everywhere at the
commencement of the carboniferous period.

No. XVI. CORNWALLIS ISLAND, M'Dougall Bay.

1. _Syringopora geniculata._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. XI. Fig. 2.
2. _Cardiola Salteri._ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. VII. Fig. 5.

The Syringopore found at Cornwallis Island appears to be identical with the variety of the Irish carboniferous _S. geniculata_, in which the corallites are at a distance from each other somewhat exceeding their diameters, and in which the connecting tubes are about two diameters apart.

A question of very considerable geological interest is raised by the occurrence together of corals, in the same locality, of silurian and carboniferous forms.

I entertain no doubt of their being _in situ_, and occurring in the same beds, for the following reasons:--

1st. The Syringopores of Griffith's Island were found at an elevation of 400 feet above the sea, and, therefore, could not be brought by drifting ice.

2nd. The specimens were apparently of the same texture and composition as the native rock, whenever the latter was visible from under the snow.

3rd. I do not believe in the lapse of a long interval of time between the silurian and carboniferous deposits,--in fact, in a Devonian period.

4th. The same blending of corals has been found in Ireland, the Bas Boulonnais, and in Devonshire, where silurian and carboniferous forms are of common occurrence in the same localities.

5th. In the carboniferous beds proper of Melville Island and Bathurst Island, there were not found, so far as I am aware, any corals of the same character as those at Griffith's Island, Cornwallis Island, and Beechey Island, which could give a supply to be drifted to the latter localities in a Pleistocene sea. It is plain, from the height at which the corals were found that, if they were brought to their present localities by ice, it must have been during the period known as Post-tertiary, as the present conditions of drift-ice in Barrow's Straits do not permit us to suppose them to have been placed where we now find them by existing causes.

The occurrence of coal-beds in such high latitudes has been speculated on by many geologists--in my opinion, not very satisfactorily; as it is very difficult to conceive how, even if the question of temperature was settled, plants even of the fern and lycopodium type could exist during the darkness of the long winter's night at Melville Island. This difficulty is increased by the facts made known to us by the discovery of ammonites and lias fossils in Prince Patrick's Island by Captain M'Clintock.

IV.--_The Lias Rocks._

Many years ago it was asserted by Lieutenant Anjou, of the Russian navy, that ammonites had been found by him in the cliffs on the south shore of the island of New Siberia, off the north coast of Asia, in lat. 74° N. This statement, which was published in Admiral Von Wrangel's journal, attracted but little attention, until it was confirmed, as far as probability of such fossils occurring at so high a latitude is concerned, by the remarkable discovery of similar fossils by Captain M'Clintock, in lat. 76° 20' N., at Point Wilkie, in Prince Patrick's Island.

In a paper, published by the Royal Dublin Society, in the first volume of their journal, p. 223, Captain M'Clintock thus describes the finding of these fossils:--

"After returning to Cape de Bray, we took up the provisions that the officer after whom it is called had left for us, and crossed the strait to Point Wilkie; reached it on the 14th May. This traverse was the more difficult from the great load upon our sledge, and the unfavorable state of the ice and snow. The freshly fallen snow was soft and deep, and beneath it the older snow lay in furrows across our route, hardened and polished by the winter gales and drifts, so that it resembled marble.

"On landing I found the beach low, composed of mud, with the foot-prints of animals frozen in it. A few hundred yards from the beach there are steep hills, about 150 feet in height, and upon the sides of these, in reddish-colored limestone, casts of fossil shells abound. Inland of these, the ordinary pale carboniferous sandstone and cherty limestone re-appeared. The fossils are all small, and of only a few varieties, some being ammonites, but the greater part bivalves. They differed from any I had met with before, and the rock was almost brick-red; I picked up what appeared to be fossil bone (_Ichthyosaurus?_), only part of it appearing out of the fragment of the rock.

"Point Wilkie appears to be an isolated patch of liassic age, resting upon carboniferous sandstones and limestones, with bands of chert, of the same age as the limestones and sandstones of Melville Island. The eastern shores of Intrepid Inlet is composed of this formation; while the western, rising into hills and terraces, is of the underlying carboniferous epoch. At the western side of Intrepid Inlet I found upon the ice a considerable quantity of white asbestos, but did not ascertain from whence it had been brought."

The fossils thus found _in situ_, I have no doubt, belong to the liassic period; and as their geological interest is indubitable, I offer no apology for inserting here the following description, written by me on Captain M'Clintock's return to Dublin from his third Arctic expedition.

No. I. WILKIE POINT, Prince Patrick's Land (Lat. 76° 20' N.; Long. 117° 20' W.).

LIAS FOSSILS.

(a) _Ammonites M'Clintocki_ Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. IX. Figs.
2, 3, 4.
_Monotis septentrionalis_, Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. IX. Figs. 6, 7.
_Pleurotomaria_, sp. Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. IX. Fig. 8.
Cast of some Univalve. Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. IX. Fig. 7.
_Nucula_, sp.

(a) Ammonites M'Clintocki (Haughton).--_Testâ compressâ, carinatâ,
anfractibus latis, lateribus, complanatis, transversim
undato-costatis; costis simplicibus, juxtâ marginem interiorem
levigatis; dorso carinato acuto; aperturâ sagittatâ, compressâ,
antice carinatâ; septis lateribus 4-lobatis._

This fine ammonite resembles several species common in the upper lias of the Plateau de Larzac, Sevennes, in France. It approaches _A. concavus_ of the lower Oolite, but is distinguished by having only four lobes on the lateral margins of the septa, and by its showing no tendency to a tricarinated keel. The following measurements give an exact idea of its form, as compared with that of the species mentioned:--

------------------+---------+-----------+---------+-----------+-------- |Diameter,| Width of |Thickness|Overlapping| Width |Inches. |last Spire.| of last | of last | of | | Diam.=100 | Spire | Spire |Umbilic. ------------------+---------+-----------+---------+-----------+-------- _A. M'Clintocki_, | 1·83 | 51/100 | 24/100 | 20/100 | 20/100 _A. concavus_, | 2·95 | 50/100 | 24/100 | 19/100 | 16/100 ------------------+---------+-----------+---------+-----------+--------

The principal difference here observable is in the somewhat greater size of _A. concavus_, and the larger umbilic of _A. M'Clintocki_. It certainly resembles this well-known ammonite very closely; and it appears to me difficult to imagine the possibility of such a fossil living in a frozen, or even a temperate sea.

The discovery of such fossils _in situ_, in 76° north latitude, is calculated to throw considerable doubt upon the theories of climate which would account for all past changes of temperature by changes in the relative position of land and water on the earth's surface. No attempt, that I am aware of, has ever been made to calculate the number of degrees of change possible in consequence of changes of position of land and water; and from some incomplete calculations I have myself made on the subject, I think it highly improbable that such causes could have ever produced a temperature in the sea at 76° north latitude which would allow of the existence of ammonites, especially ammonites 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.

During the course of the same Arctic expedition in which these organic remains were found, Captain Sir Edward Belcher discovered in some loose rubble, of which a cairn was built on Exmouth Island (lat. 77° 12' N., long. 96° W.), vertebral bones of, apparently, same liassic enaliosaurian. All doubt as to the reality of this discovery, and all idea of accounting for the occurrence of such remains by drift, must be abandoned, as the fossils found by M'Clintock were unquestionably _in situ_, and it is impossible to evade the consequences that follow to geological theory from their discovery.

Captain Sherard Osborn, also, found broken vertebræ of an ichthyosaurus, 150 feet up Rendezvous Hill, the north-west extreme of Bathurst Island: of these specimens, one lay among a mass of stone that had slipped from the N.W. face of the hill; the other was by the side of a ravine or deep watercourse on the southern face of the same elevation. I have no doubt but that they were _in situ_.

I am well aware that the question of light in the Arctic seas will be disposed of by some geologists, who will remind us that the saurians, and probably the ammonites, were endowed with a complicated optical apparatus, rendering them capable of using their eyes, not only for the distinct vision of objects differing greatly in distance, but also of using them, under widely differing conditions of light and darkness; and I readily admit the force of such observations.

But what are we to say as to the question of temperature? It was certainly necessary for an ammonite to have a sea free from ice, on which to float and bask in the pale rays of the Arctic sun; and therefore I claim a temperature for those seas, at least similar to that which now prevails in the British Islands: and I may add that the ammonite, from its habits, was essentially dependent on the temperature of the air, as well as on that of the water.

There is at present a difference of 49·5° F. between the mean annual temperature of Point Wilkie and Dublin; and if this change of temperature be supposed to be caused by a change of the relative positions of land and water, the temperature of Dublin, or of some place on the same parallel of latitude, must be supposed to be raised to 99·5° F.; while the temperature of the thermal equator will exceed 124°--a temperature only a few degrees below that requisite to boil an egg! I reject, without scruple, a theory that requires such a result, which must be considered as a minimum; as it is probable that the ammonite required a finer climate than that of Britain for the full enjoyment of his existence.

The theory of central heat, also, appears to me to be open to the same objection, as a mode of explaining this remarkable geological fact; for it will simply add a constant to our present climates, leaving the differences to remain, as at present, to be accounted for by latitude and distribution of land and water. The astronomical theory of Herschel, also, which would account for former changes of climate by changes in the radiating power of the sun, would only increase the temperature at each latitude, leaving the differences as at present.

The only speculation with which I am acquainted, which is capable of solving this _opprobrium geologicorum_, is the hypothesis of a change in the axis of rotation of the earth, the admission of which, as a geological possibility, is mathematically demonstrable, and which has recently had some singular evidence in its favor advanced by geologists. In 1851, I brought forward, at the Geological Society of Dublin, a case of angular fragments of granite occurring in the carboniferous limestone of the County Dublin; and explained the phenomena by the supposition of the transporting power of ice. In 1855, Professor Ramsay laid before the Geological Society of London a full and detailed theory of glaciers and ice as agents concerned in the formation of a remarkable breccia, of Permian age, occurring in the central counties of England; and still more recently the same agent has been employed by the geological surveyors of India to account for the transport of materials at geological periods long antecedent to those in which ice transport is commonly supposed to have commenced. The motion of the earth's axis would reconcile all the facts known, and it must be regarded as a geological desideratum to determine its amount and direction, and to assign the cause of such a movement. The solution of this problem I regard as quite possible.

It is well worthy of remark, that the arguments from the occurrence of coal-plants and ammonites strengthen each other; the coal-plants rendering the question of _light_, and the ammonites that of _heat_, insuperable objections to the admission of any received geological hypothesis to account for the finding of such remains, _in situ_, in latitudes so high as those of Melville Island, Prince Patrick's Island, and Exmouth Island.

V.--_The Superficial Deposits._

The surface of the ground, where exposed, throughout the Arctic Archipelago, does not appear to be covered with thick deposits of clay or gravel, such as are found generally in the north of Europe, and referred by geologists to what they call "the Glacial Epoch." There are not, however, wanting abundant evidences of the transport of drift materials, and there is some good evidence, collected by Captain M'Clintock, of the direction in which the drift was moved.

Specimens of granite, which I have no hesitation in referring to the characteristic granite of the west side of North Somerset, were found at Leopold Harbor (North Somerset) and at Graham Moore Bay (Bathurst Island); one of these localities is N.E. and the other N.W. of the granite of North Somerset, from which I infer that there was no constant prevailing direction for the drift ice that carried these boulders, but that they were transported to the northward in various directions, according to the varying motion of the currents that moved the ice. The boulder of granite at Port Leopold is 100 miles N.E. of the granite which gave origin to it; and the specimens from Graham Moore Bay are 190 miles to the N.W. of their source.

At Cape Rennell (North Somerset), in a direction intermediate between the two former directions, a remarkable boulder of the same granite was found, confirming the general direction of the transporting force from south to north. Its position and size are thus recorded by Captain M'Clintock:--"Near Cape Rennell we passed a very remarkable rounded boulder of gneiss or granite; it was 6 yards in circumference, and stood near the beach, and some 15 or 20 yards above it; one or two masses of rounded gneiss, although very much smaller, had arrested our attention at Port Leopold."

It is well known that Captain Sir Robert M'Clure brought home specimens of pine-trees found in the greatest abundance in the ravines on the west coast of Baring Island; one of his specimens preserved in the museum of the Royal Dublin Society measures 15 inches by 12 inches, and contains three knots that prove it formed a portion of the stem high above its root. The bark is not found on this specimen, which does not represent the full thickness of the tree; I have estimated that this fragment contains 70 rings of annual growth.

Similar remains were found by Captain M'Clintock and Lieutenant Mecham in Prince Patrick's Island, and in Wellington Channel by Sir Edward Belcher. On the coast of New Siberia, Lieutenant Anjou found a clay cliff containing stems of trees still capable of being used as fuel. The original observers all agree in thinking that these trees grew where they are now found; and Captain Osborne, in mentioning Sir Roderick I. Murchison's opinion that they are drift timber, justly adds the remark, that a sea sufficiently free from ice to allow of their being drifted from the south would indicate also a climate sufficiently mild to allow of their having grown upon the land where they now occur. Mr. Hopkins, in his anniversary address as President of the Geological Society of London, has published a remarkable geological speculation, which would account for the facts above mentioned.[36] So far as the evidence of drift boulders is concerned, I have shown that the direction of the currents was from the south; a fact which falls in with the drift theory, so far as it goes.

We cannot, however, dissociate these trees from the facts connected with the distribution of the remains of the Siberian Mammoth in Asia and America. It is now known that this elephant was provided with a warm fur, and that his food was of a kind which grows even now in Northern Siberia; so that the drift theory, which was formerly supposed necessary to account for the occurrence of these remains, has now been quietly dropped, _sub silentio_, by the geologists. Many other drift theories have, in like manner, lived their short day, and gone the way of all false hypotheses; among others, the drift theory of the origin of coal. Further investigation may show that the glacial epoch of Europe was one of a very different character in Asia and America, and that, while glaciers clothed the sides of Snowdon and Lugnaquillia, pine forests flourished in the Parry Islands, and the Siberian elephants wandered on the shores of a sea washed by the waves of an ocean that carried no drifting ice.

There is abundant evidence, however, that the Arctic Archipelago was submerged in very recent geological periods; for we know that subfossil shells, of species that now inhabit the waters of the neighboring seas, are found at considerable heights throughout the whole group of islands. M'Clure found shells of the _Cyprina Islandica_, at the summit of the Coxcomb range, in Baring Island, at an elevation of 500 feet above the sea-level; Captain Parry, also, has recorded the occurrence of _Venus_ (probably _Cyprina Islandica_) on Byam Martin's Island; and in the recent voyage of the 'Fox,' Dr. Walker, the Surgeon of the expedition, found the following subfossil shells at Port Kennedy, at elevations of from 100 to 500 feet:--

1. _Saxicava rugosa._
2. _Tellina proxima._
3. _Astarte Arctica_ (Borealis.)
4. _Mya Uddevallensis._
5. _Mya truncata._
6. _Cardium_ sp.
7. _Buccinum undatum._
8. _Acmea testudinalis._
9. _Balanus Uddevallensis._

At the same place a portion of the palate-bone of a whale (Right Whale) was found at an elevation of 150 feet.

All these facts indicate the former submergence of the Arctic Archipelago, but this submergence must have been anterior to the period when pine forests clothed the low sandy shores of the slowly emerging islands, the remains of which forests now occupy a position at least 100 feet above high-water mark.

The geological map which I am enabled to publish from the data collected by Captains M'Clintock, M'Clure, Osborn, &c., is an enlargement of that which was published in 1857 by the Royal Society of Dublin, to illustrate the fine collection of Arctic fossils and minerals deposited in the museum of that body by Captains M'Clintock and M'Clure. In perfecting it for its present purpose I have availed myself of all the other sources of information within my reach, among which I am bound to mention in particular the excellent Appendix to Dr. Sutherland's 'Voyage of the Lady Franklin and Sophia,' written by Mr. Salter, Palæontologist of the Geological Survey of Great Britain.

Many of the mineral specimens from Greenland, and the fossils from Cape Riley, Cape Farrand, Point Fury and Brentford Bay, were collected by Dr. David Walker, surgeon and naturalist to the 'Fox' Expedition.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Journal of the Royal Dublin Society, 1857.

[31] Collected by Dr. Walker, surgeon to the 'Fox' Expedition.

[32] Collected by Dr. Walker, surgeon to the 'Fox' Expedition.

[33] Collected by Captain Allen Young.

[34] These specimens are "_Drift_" but are mentioned here as they were found on the carboniferous sandstone area.

[35] _Vide_ Arctic Expeditions, 1854-55, p. 254.

[36] Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., vol. VIII. p. lxiv.

No. V.

LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 'FOX' EXPEDITION.

£ s. d. ACLAND, Sir T. D. Bart. 100 0 0 Adams, Dr. Walter, Edinburgh. 3 3 0 Aldrich, Captain, R.N. 1 1 0 Allan, Rob. M., Esq. 1 1 0 Allen, Captain Robert 5 5 0 Allen, Captain, R.N. 2 2 0 Ames, Mrs. 5 0 0 Ames, Miss 1 0 0 Anon. 5 0 0 Armstrong, Mrs. 1 1 0 Armstrong, children of Mrs. 0 8 9 Arnold, Mrs. 1 1 0 Arrowsmith, John, Esq. 5 0 0 Austin, Rear-Adm. Horatio T. R.N., C.B. 5 0 0

BABBAGE, Charles, Esq. 10 0 0 Baikie, Dr. 1 1 0 Baker, Mrs. 5 0 0 Barkworth, Geo., Esq. 5 0 0 Barras, Miss 1 1 0 Barrett, H. J., Esq. 1 0 0 Barrow, John, Esq. 25 0 0 Barstow, Lieutenant, R.N. 1 0 0 Barth, Dr. Henry 5 5 0 Bath, W. J. C., Esq. 0 2 6 Batty, Mrs. J. M. 1 1 0 Beaufort, Rear-Adm. Sir Francis, K.C.B. 50 0 0 Bell, Thos., Esq., Pres. Lin. Soc. 10 10 0 Bennett, John S., Esq. 5 0 0 Birch, J. W. N., Esq. 10 0 0 Bird, Captain, R.N. 5 0 0 Birmingham, small sums collected at Evans' Library 3 1 0 Booth, Mrs. 5 0 0 Borton, Mrs., collected by 1 10 0 Boston, collected at, by Mr. Morton 4 4 0 Bovill, Walter, Esq. 5 0 0 Boyer, Lieut. R.N. 0 10 0 Boyle, the Hon. Carolina C. 1 0 0 Brigg, collected at 1 1 0 Brine, Captain, R.E. 1 1 0 Brooking, J. Holdsworth, Esq. 10 0 0 Brown, Robert, Esq., V.P.L.S. 20 0 0 Brown, John, Esq. 5 5 0 Brown, J. E., Esq., R.N. 0 5 0 Bruce, the Rev. C. 1 1 0 Burgoyne, Captain, R.N. 1 0 0 Burton, Alfred, Esq. 1 1 0 Byron, the Hon. Fred. 5 0 0

CHESNEY, Major-General 2 2 0 Collinson, Captain, R.N., C.B. 20 0 0 Coningham, W., Esq., M.P. 100 0 0 Coote, C. W., Esq. 1 0 0 Coote, Charles, Esq. 10 0 0 Courtauld, Samuel, Esq. 25 0 0 Courtauld, George, Esq. 15 0 0 Coutts, Messrs. & Co. 50 0 0 Crasp, J., Esq., Surgeon, 63rd Regt. 1 0 0 Crauford, John, Esq. 5 0 0 Cresswell, S. Gurney, Commander, R.N. 5 0 0

DALGETY, F. T., Esq. 10 10 0 De la Roquette, M., V.P. of Geog. Soc. of Paris, 1000 fr. 40 0 0 Dilke, C. W., Esq. 5 0 0 Dixon, James, Esq. 10 0 0 Doxat, Alexis J., Esq. 10 10 0 Doxat, Miss H., collected by 4 0 0 "Dubious" 0 2 6 Dufferin, Lord 25 0 0

EDGAR, Mrs., collected by 5 0 0 Ellesmere, the Earl of 15 0 0 Elphinstone, the Hon. Mount-Stewart 10 0 0 Elton, Sir Arthur H., Bart. 5 5 0 Emanuel, Ezekiel, Esq. 1 0 0

FAIRHOLME, the Hon. Mrs. 150 0 0 Filliter, George, Esq. 10 0 0 Fitton, Dr. 21 0 0 Fortescue, Rev. T. F. G. 2 2 0

GARLING, H., Esq. 1 1 0 Gassiot, J. P., Esq. 25 0 0 Gimingham, W., Esq., & Mrs. 2 2 0 Gipps, Lady 5 0 9 Gowen, J. R., Esq. 5 0 0 Graves, Messrs. Pall Mall 1 1 0 Griffiths, G. H., Esq. 5 5 0 Gruneisen, Ch. Lewis, Esq. 1 1 0 Gruneisen, Mrs. 1 1 0 Guillemard, the Rev. W. H. 5 0 0 Guillemard, Miss 1 0 0

HALL, Jas., Esq. 5 0 0 Hanbury, Mrs. 1 1 0 Hardinge, Commander, R.N. 0 10 0 Hardwicke, Philip, Esq. 5 0 0 Harney, Julian, Esq., collected by, at Jersey 50 0 0 Heales, Alfred, Esq. 5 5 0 Herring, Miss 2 2 0 Hicks, John, Esq. 2 0 0 Hill, Col. 63rd Regt. 1 0 0 Hodgson, Mrs. 10 0 0 Holland, Commander, R.N. 5 0 0 Hollingsworth, H., Esq. 2 2 0 Holland, Rob., Esq. 10 10 0 Hooker, Dr. J. D. 5 5 0 Hornby, Miss Georgina 100 0 0 Hornby, the Rev. Edward 25 0 0 Hornby, Mrs. Edmund 5 0 0 Hornby, Miss Georgina, collected by 13 4 0 Hovell, W. H., Esq. 5 5 0 Hughes, Lieutenant, R.N. 2 0 0

INGLIS, Lady 10 0 0 Irby, T. W., Esq. 1 1 0

JACKSON, N. Ward, Esq. 21 0 0 Janson, J. C., Esq. 5 5 0 Jeanes, H. W., Esq., R.N. 0 10 0 Jersey "Times" 2 10 0

KELLETT, Commodore, C.B. 10 0 0 Kendall, Mrs. 1 0 0 Kendall, the Rev. Professor 1 0 0 Key, Lieut., R.N. 0 5 0 King, William, Esq. 5 0 0

LAIRD, Macgregor, Esq. 50 0 0 Laird, John, Esq. 25 0 0 L. and N. W. 1 4 0 Lanford, J., Esq., Quartermaster 63rd Regiment 0 10 0 Langhorne, A., Esq. 1 1 0 Larcom, Mrs. 1 0 0 Leach, William, Esq. 5 5 0 Le Feuvre, W. J., Esq. 50 0 0 Lefroy, C. E., Esq. 2 0 0 Leicester, the Rev. F. 1 1 0 Lethbridge, Lieut., R.N. 0 5 0 "Lochmaben Castle," Owners of the 5 5 0 Lyall, D., Esq., R.N., M.D. 5 0 0

MACKINTOSH, Eneas, Esq. 10 0 0 Maguire, Captain, R.N. 3 3 0 Maitland, Capt. Sir Thos., R.N. 1 0 0 Majendie, Ashhurst, Esq., and Mrs. 100 0 0 Servants of the above 0 14 0 Malby, Messrs. 5 0 0 Malby, Messrs., Workmen in their Establishment by a 6_d._ Subscription 4 11 6 Mansfield, W. H. S., Esq. 0 10 0 Mantell, Dr. A. A. 1 0 0 Markham, Clements, Esq. 1 1 0 Markman, Mrs. 1 0 0 M'Crea, Captain, R.N. 0 10 0 M'Kinlay, Miss 1 0 0 M'Kinlay, Miss Elizabeth 1 0 0 M'William, Dr., R.N. 1 1 0 Merry, W. L., Esq. 1 1 0 Morris, Rev. F. B. 1 0 0 Morris, Sir Armine, Bart. 5 0 0 Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey, G.C.St.S., President of the Royal Geographical Society 100 0 0 Murray, John, Esq. 20 0 0

NARES, Fras., Esq. 2 2 0 Newall, W. L., Esq. 100 0 0 Nicholson, Sir Charles 5 0 0 N. J. 2 2 0 Norwood, collected at, by a Lady 7 15 0

OMMANNEY, Capt. Erasmus, R.N. 2 0 0 Osborn, Sir George, Bart. 1 0 0

PAGET, A. F., Esq. 0 10 6 Paget, C. H. M., Esq. 1 1 0 Palsey, Gen. Sir Charles W., K.C.B. 10 0 0 Second Subscription 10 0 0 Third Subscription 5 0 0 Pattinson, H. L., Esq. 50 9 0 Pearce, Stephen, Esq. 2 2 0 Phillimore, Captain, R.N. 2 2 0 Pigou, Fred., Esq. 10 0 0 Prescott, Vice-Admiral Sir Henry, K.C.B. 5 0 0

RAWNSLEY, the Rev. Drummond 5 0 0 Rawnsley, Mrs., collected by 1 0 0 Rawnsley, William Franklin, collected by, at Uppingham School 0 10 0 Raynsford, Mrs. 1 1 0 Reynardson, H. B., Esq. 5 0 0 Rogers, Lieut., R.N. 1 0 0 Roget, Dr. P. M. 5 0 0 Roper, Geo., Esq. 5 5 0 Ross, Rear-Admiral Sir Jas. C. 21 0 0 Rupert's Land, Bishop of 5 0 0

SABINE, Major-General 25 0 0 Sadler, W. F., Esq. 10 10 0 Sefton, the Countess of 10 0 0 Shearley, W., Esq. 2 0 0 Sheil, Sir Justin 5 0 0 Shewell, John Tulmin, Esq. 5 5 0 Simpson, J., Esq., R.N. 1 10 0 Skey, Dr. 2 2 0 Smith, Eric E., Esq. 2 0 0 Smith, John Henry, Esq. 10 10 0 Smith, Osborn, Esq. 2 2 0 Smith, Archibald, Esq. 5 5 0 Sparrow, Jas., Esq. 5 0 0 St. Asaph, the Bishop of 10 0 0 St. David's, the Bishop of 10 0 0 St. Selger, A. B. 5 0 0 Stainton, J. J., Esq. 3 3 0 Statham, J. L., Esq. 1 1 0 Stephenson, Robert, Esq. 20 0 0 Stirling, Commander, R.N. 0 10 0 Strzelecki, Count P. de 25 0 0 Swinburne, Rear-Admiral 30 0 0 Sykes, Col., M.P. 5 0 0

TAYLOR, William, Esq. 5 0 0 Tennant, James, Esq. 2 0 0 T. H., collected in shillings by 2 0 0 Thackeray, W. M., Esq. 5 0 0 Thompson, J., Esq. 1 1 0 Tindal, Commander, R.N. 2 2 0 Tinney, W. H., Esq., Q.C. 20 0 0 Tite, W., Esq., M.P. 50 0 0 Trevelyan, Sir W. C., Bart. 40 0 0 Trevelyan, Lady 10 0 0 Trevilian, M. C., Esq. 2 2 0 Trollope, Commander, R.N. 2 2 0 Tuckett, Fred., Esq. 5 0 9 Tudor, J., Esq. 0 10 0 Turner, Alfred, Esq. 15 0 0 Tweedie, W. M., Esq. 5 0 0

VINCENT, John, Esq. 1 0 0

WALKER, James, Esq. 21 0 0 Washington, Captain, R.N., Hydrographer of the Navy 21 0 0 Waterfield, Edward, Esq. 5 0 0 Wayse, the Rev. J. W. 5 0 0 Weld, Charles R., Esq. 5 0 0 Wheatstone, Professor 5 0 0 Willes, Hon. Mr. Justice 21 0 0 Wilson, Robert, Esq. 1 1 6 Wittenoom, Mess. 1 1 0 Wodehouse, Commander 0 10 0 Woodcock, J. Parry, Esq. 5 0 0 Worsley, Marcus, Esq. 10 0 0 Wright, the Rev. R. F. 2 2 0 Wrottesley, Lord 50 0 0

YOUNG, Chas. F., Esq. 5 0 0 Young, Miss 5 0 0 Young, A. Verity, Esq. 2 2 0 Yule, Mrs. H. 5 0 0

The brother and sisters of the late John and Thomas Hartnell, of H.M.S. 'Erebus,' buried at Beechey Island 5 0 0 A Commander, R.N. 0 5 0 A Commander in the Merchant Service 500 0 0 A Friend. C. H. 0 5 0 A Friend 1 0 0 The daughters of a retired Commander 2 0 0 A Sympathiser 1 0 0 ----------- £2981 8 9

A life-boat, presented by Messrs. White of Cowes.

A large quantity of preserved potatoes, by Messrs. King, late Edwards.

Apparatus for lowering a boat at sea, presented by Mr. Clifford, the inventor.

Three travelling-tents, by Messrs. Winsor and Newton.

A stove, by Mr. Rettie.

20 dozen "Isle of Wight sauce," by Mr. Tucker of Newport.

Apparatus for reefing topsails, from Mr. Cunningham, the inventor.

End of Project Gutenberg's In the Arctic Seas, by Francis Leopold McClintock

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