210 Tertiary. 



ccBlatura, Cancellariaimpressa, C. tortipUca, Tornatellcea lata,Corhula 

 filosa, JEgeria donacea, Gytheriopsis hydana, Cyclas claihornensis, 

 Mysia deltoidea, Conus alveat/us, C. subsaurklens, Cochlespira bella, 

 Buccitriton altum, Limatia marylandica, Girsostrema claihornensis, 

 Cancellaria ellapsa, Dentalium densatyum ; from Shark river, Mon- 

 mouth county, New Jersey, Pleurotomaria perlata, Surcula amiosa, 

 ActoBonema prisca, aud Avicula annosa. 



In 1866, Prof. J. W. Dawson* said the snow-clad hills of Green- 

 land send down to the sea great glaciers, which in the ba^^s and fiords 

 of tliat inhospitable region, 'form, at their extremities, huge cliffs of ever- 

 lasting ice, aud annually " calve," as the seamen say, or give off* a 

 great progeny of ice islands, which slowly drifted to the southward 

 hj the Arctic current, pass along the American coast, diffusing a cold 

 and bleak atmosphere, until they melt in the warm waters of the Gulf 

 stream. Many of these bergs enter the straits of Belle-Isle, for the 

 Arctic current clings closely to the coast, and a part of it seems to be 

 deflected into the Gulf of St. Lawrence through this passage, carrying 

 with it many large bergs. Mr. Vaughau, late superintendent of the 

 light house at Belle-Isle, has kept a register of icebergs for several 

 years. He states that for ten which enter the straits, fifty drift to the 

 southward, and that most of those which enter pass inward on the 

 north side of the island, drift toward the western end of the straits and 

 then pass out on the south of the island, so that the straits seem to be 

 merelj^ a sort of eddy in the course of the bergs. The number in the 

 straits varies much in different seasons of the year. The greatest 

 number are seen in spring, especiall}^ in Ma}^ and June; and toward 

 autumn and in the winter verj' few remain. Those which remain until 

 autumn are reduced to mere skeletons; but if they survive until winter, 

 they again grow in dimensions, owing to the accumulations upon them 

 of snow and new ice. Those that we saw early in July were large and 

 massive in their proportions. The few that remained when we returned 

 in September, were smaller in size, and cut into fantastic and toppling- 

 pinnacles. Vaughan records that on the 30th of May, 1858, he counted 

 in the straits of Belle-Isle 496 bergs, the least of them 60 feet in height, 

 some of them half a mile long and 200 feet high. Only ^ of the vol- 

 ume of floating ice appears above water, and many of these great bergs 

 may thus touch the ground in a depth of 30 fathoms or more, so that 

 if we iraao-ine 400 of them moving up and down under the influence of 



* Can. Nat. & tieol., 2d series, vol. iii- 



