Northern Nautical and Scientific Expedition in 1838-39. 249 



in the latter place of embarking for Nova Zembla ; but no fishing-boat 

 having attempted that dangerous navigation in 1839, M. Robert's devot- 

 edness and expectations were disappointed. All, however, was not lost. 

 On the preceding year, a small vessel had been hired by some individuals 

 to go in search of a pretended gold mine, which some fishermen had de- 

 clared to exist in that desert and icy land. The expedition had brought 

 back a very useless cargo of pyriteous rocks, of considerably varied cha- 

 racter. M. Robert was permitted to make a selection from these rocks, 

 which are extremely remarkable. This traveller, then, after various re- 

 searches on the shores of the White Sea, reascended the Dwina, and de- 

 scended the Volga, as far as the government of Cazan. From thence he 

 traversed the whole of Russia to the Baltic. 



The materials relative to M. Robert's labours, which your commission- 

 ers have had to examine, arc, 'ist, a collection of more than 16G0 speci- 

 mens belonging to a great number of species or principal varieties of 

 rocks, the collection which is deposited in the Museum, and which, when 

 united to those of the former expeditions, gives a total of more than 5300 

 specimens ; 2d, a catalogue raisonne of this collection, in which the loca- 

 lities and formations are indicated; 3</, eighty-eight drawings or sketches 

 representing the appearance of the coasts, mountains, glaciers, floating 

 ice, and geological sections ; 4,th, a printed notice respecting the glaciers 

 of Spitzbcrgen ;* 6th, a manuscript memoir of forty-nine quarto pages, 

 in which M. Robert has given a synopsis of the results of his investiga- 

 tions in 1838 ; Gth, a printed mcmoir,t in which this traveller has made 

 known to the public the principal results of his expedition in 1839. 



It would be impossible for us to follow M. Robert in detail through 

 the multitude of observations, however interesting these might be, which 

 he has inserted in his Catalogue and Memoirs, or which arise from the ex- 

 amination of his drawings and specimens of rocks. We shall content 

 ourselves by taking for our guide the itinerary of his two expeditions, 

 and pointing out the most striking facts. 



The shores of the Gulf of Drontheim enabled M. Robert to ascer- 

 tain that all this portion of the western coast of Norway belongs exclu- 

 sively to gneiss-formations, and a taleose and protogenic system, which 

 forms the celebrated copper-mines wrought at Roraas. At many points 

 of the coast, and even to a height of upwards of 328 feet (100 metres) above 

 the level of the sea, these primordial formations present surfaces furrowed 

 longitudinally, smoothed and polished, like those on which the waves of 

 the ocean are now exercising their effects. Above this height, the ground 

 exhibits broken, angular, and sometimes narrow forms, shooting upwards, 

 which arc owing to the constitution and inclination of the strata. At the 

 isle of Lexen, the marine pebbles cover the most elevated rounded ridges, 

 and prove, by their presence, the origin of this singular configuration, and 

 the rise of this part of Norway after the commencement of the geolo- 

 gical period in which we live. 



♦ Bulletin de la Societ6 Geologique, torn. ix. p. 114. t Ibid. torn. x\. p. 298. 



