collected by Captain Parry. 19 



stratification, numerous buttress-like projections and mural pre- 

 cipices, is not of uncommon occurrence in the formations of the 

 transition and older fletz lime stone ; but still more striking in 

 this respect is the appearance of the sandstone formations, 

 especially those of more ancient date. Having undergone a 

 peculiar disintegration which acts in a direction nearly perpen- 

 dicular to the horizontal stratification, they exhibit the represen- 

 tations of ruined towers, buttresses, pillars, and similar works 

 raised by the hand of men. This structure, so strikingly express- 

 ed in the sandstone formation of Bohemia, Saxony, and other 

 parts of Germany, at the Cape of Good Hope, and particularly 

 in several mountainous tracts of China, appears no less charac- 

 teristic of the sandstone of some parts of the coast of Melville 

 Island, especially at Cape Dundas, the westernmost point to 

 which the investigation of Captain Parry extended, and the 

 general features of which have been so ably described by him 

 in his Journal. 



This sandstone is composed of very fine, flat, confluent 

 grains, with here and there the appearance of minute silvery 

 scales, which, when more or less aggregate, communicate to the 

 mass a perfectly micaceous appearance. It occurs both of a 

 uniform greyish-white colour, and more or less marked through- 

 out by small brown ochry spots, which sometimes are confluent 

 into large patches. It generally separates into tabular pieces, 

 and is sometimes invested on the rifts with thin plates of white 

 carbonate of lime . Some of its varieties are not unlike grau- 

 wacke slate. It contains secondary fossils. Of the specimens 

 which I had an opportunity of examining, two bore the impres- 

 sions of a Trilobite, but too indistinct to admit of being deter- 

 mined with precision *. 



In another variety of sandstone, of a grey colour, found in 

 the neighbourhood of Table-hill, I observed some disk-shaped 

 bodies of about half an inch in diameter, exhibiting concentric 

 circles, with crenulated rays proceeding from the centre, which 



• I have since determined it to belong to Brongnart's genus of Asaphus 

 lately published ; but whether or not it be one of the species described by 

 him and Wablenberg, cannot be ascertained from the specimen alluded to. 

 C 2 



