344 APPENDIX. No. XV. 



parallel on the opposite coast of Hall Basin, on the Greenland 

 coast, the country is ice-clad to the water's edge. 



Petermann Fiord is described by Dr. Coppinger as 

 bounded by vertical cliffs, of fossiliferous (Silurian) limestone 

 rock, 1,100 feet in height, surmounted by an ice-cap, which 

 flows steadily over the cliffs, from which it hangs in gigantic 

 masses, which from time to time fall in a series of avalanches, 

 carrying with them rocks torn from the face of the cliff, 

 and precipitate them on the floe beneath. 



The surface of the floe is traversed by deep wave-like 

 furrows, thirty feet in depth, moving obliquely across it, 

 and exceedingly difficult to traverse, especially where lateral 

 glaciers come in, and break the continuity of the ridges, 

 and separate them by wide fissures and gaps. The ice 

 brought down by these lateral gaps affects but little the 

 volume of the immense glacier flowing down from the eastern 

 country, which appears to have formerly filled the entire 

 valley. 



The continuity of the molluscan fauna to the Grinnell 

 Land mud-becls with those now living on the coast, already 

 referred to, points to a uniformity of climatal conditions 

 prevailing, through a period marked by considerable physical 

 change, in the relative proportions of sea and land in the 

 North Polar area, changes which appear to have alike unin- 

 fluenced the molluscan fauna of the seas and the mammalian 

 fauna of the land ; the mud-becls having afforded bones of the 

 lemming {My odes torquatus), the ringed seal (Phoca his- 

 pida), the reindeer, and the musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus). 



The greater precipitation of snow on the east coast of the 

 basin, and consequent greater size of the effluent glaciers, 

 and more extensive work of glaciation affected, appear to 

 have long gone on, and to have been formerly more important 

 than now ; but the conditions do not ever appear to have 

 been so rigorous as to preclude the existence of animals, and 

 the somewhat local character of the more extensive glaciation 

 is worthy of note, as throwing some light on the origin ' of 

 areas of no glaciation,' in portions of the British Isles, and ;i< 



