TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 213 



in Australia, they would appear the most likely of all to have reached these high 

 latitudes. 



With them is a fossil which as yet has only a polar or subpolar range. Von Buch 

 described in 1846 the few relics obtained by Keilhau in exploring a small island 

 (Bear Island, lat. 74° 30') between Spitzbergen and the North Cape. The cliffs were 

 limestone, capping coal shales (with ferns), and contained the above-named Productus 

 Cora, with other European species. The principal fossil was a Spirifer of peculiar 

 form, which he named after its discoverer, S. Keilhavii, and figured in the Berlia 

 Transactions. Curiously enough, this species, which appears to range to the Icy 

 Sea in Russia, is the most abundant of the Arctic fossils brought home by Capt. 

 Belcher. He found it both at Depot Point and on the island he has called Exmouth 

 Island, between the coast and North Cornwall. The Productus Cora was found in 

 situ on the summit of the island, which consists of a red ferruginous sand with balls 

 of pyrites, and capped by reddish limestone, which is thus proved to be carboniferous. 



The age of the red sandstone is equivocal. On the main land it is interstratified 

 with a fissile greywacke grit, which forms considerable cliffs stretching away to the 

 eastward, to North Yorkshire and Cardigan Straits, on the shores of which a 

 blackish earthy limestone occurs, quite different to that of Albert Land, and with 

 different fossils. There are species of Rkynchonella, Orihis, and Spirifer, which all 

 have a Devonian aspect, and small Producti are associated in it with Atrypa reticu- 

 laris, which species is never found in carboniferous rocks. 



If this indication be accepted (and I think it a good one), that the Devonian sy- 

 stem is here interposed between the Silurian plateau and the Carboniferous rocks, it 

 would be satisfactory ; and it is worth while to remember here, that in the easterly 

 trend of these rocks Dr. Sutherland discovered a considerable formation of stratified 

 sandstones along the north-eastern end of Baffin's Bay. I have provisionally given 

 them the same colour. But nothing is known of the intervening ground. 



The terminal member of the Palaeozoic series, the Permian, is not yet traced in 

 Polar America. But in Spitzbergen it has long been known, and we are indebted 

 to Prof. De Koninck for a valuable list, chiefly European species, from thence. The 

 Productus horridus and P. cancrini, Spirifer alatus and S. cristatus, are too well 

 known to need any comment. They were collected at Bell Sound by M. Robert, in 

 a latitude as high as that of Albert Land. 



And now we come to the most interesting part of the Geology of the Arctic Basin, 

 for I must be permitted, with the evidences before cited of an ascending section 

 northwards, to call it so. 



The reddish limestone forming the cap of Exmouth Island before referred to, is 

 clearly, from its fossils, of carboniferous date. But in building the cairn on the 

 summit, the fragments of limestone were carefully examined, and some of them at 

 least contained bones of Vertebrata, which, under Prof. Owen's examination, have 

 turned out to be Ichthyosaurus ! Sir Edward Belcher assures me there was no per- 

 ceptible difference between the fragments with bones and those with the Carboni- 

 ferous shells above quoted. Yet this similarity of composition need not prevent our 

 inferring that on this summit we have an outlying patch of Oolitic or Liassic rocks 

 brought into close contact with the old limestone. 



And as confirming the idea of the fossils being here in situ, and not drifted masses, 

 Capt. iM'Clintock had the good fortune to discover oolitic or lias fossils, Ammo- 

 nites, Spirifers, Pecten, &c.. in Prince Patrick's Land, lat. 76° 30', long. 1 17°. These 

 are quoted in the Royal Dublin Society's Journal for Nov. 1854. By referring to 

 the map, it will be seen that the trend from this point to Exmouth Island follows 

 nearly the direction E. by N. which the Carboniferous formation takes in its range 

 from Melville Island to Albert Land. Science is greatly indebted to both these 

 gallant officers for their exertions. 



In the Dublin Journal above quoted are some excellent observations by Dr. Scouler 

 on the Tertiary (miocene probably) flora of W. Greenland ; but these do not come 

 within the object of this communication. It is worth while, in conclusion, to ob- 

 serve, that elevation of the land has taken place since the period of the (drift ?), for 

 Arctic shells imbedded in it were found by the former expedition as far as 500 feet 

 above the sea-level, and Capt. Belcher has found bones of large Vertebrata (whales ?) 

 at even greater elevations. 



