SABLE ISLAND—MACDONAELP. 26% 
Capt. Scoresby, who reconnoitered the foot of the great glacier 
of Spitzbergen, counted at one time upwards of 500 icebergs 
starting out on their course southward, many of which were 
laden with thousands of tons of sand, mud and gravel. 
Capt. Wilkes, of the United States exploring expedition, 
landed upon an upturned iceberg, supposing it to be an island, 
Upon it he found huge boulders of basalt and sandstone embed- 
ded in mud, sand and gravel, the whole forming an ice conglom- 
erate. 
Sir John Ross mentions an incident of an iceberg capsizing in 
lat. 74°, bringing up a portion of the bottom 100 feet above the 
surface, so. that it was for the moment supposed to be an island 
nut previously seen. 
In addition to the masses of rock, sand, ete., accumulated on 
the surface of the glacier from the adjoining cliff, and the mud 
and sedimentary matter scooped from the sea bottom by upturned 
icebergs, is to be added the effect of land ice, as observed by Kane 
and others, where the shores of the Arctic in a similar manner to. 
ground ice forms in more than a hundred feet of water, raising 
from the bottom an enormous amount of material. On the 
breaking up of the ice those floes are carried off by the current 
southward to be discharged at the great dumping grounds of 
Newfoundland. 
Commander White, of the U.S. Navy, in his Arctic voyages 
also relates seeing the birth of an iceberg which cracked from 
the glacier with a loud report, and after a summersault in 180 
fathoms of water appeared with an enormous cliff of granite 
embedded in its surface, which it had carried from the adjoining 
bluff. 
It is obvious that with this transporting process, carried for- 
ward for a long period of time, we may look here for deposits on 
a colossal seale, and account for not only the great Bank of New- 
foundland, but the whole series of Banks, of which Sable Island 
is the apex. 
It may be thought by some that while this process may be 
deemed sufficient to account for the formation of the great Bank, 
we must look to some other source for the presence of the west- 
ern Banks, 
