20 Mr. Konig on the Rock Sppcimrnf^ 



is in the form of a small knob : they are, no doubt, trochi or 

 joints of the stem of an Encrinus ; but this is all that can be 

 said of them. 



The two specimens of sand stone containing the above-men- 

 tioned secondary fossils, are pretty similar in appearance to 

 /those others brought from Melville Island, which abound with 

 the vegetable remains characteristic of the coat sandstone. 

 These are for the most part merely impressions and filmy car- 

 bonaceous remnants of leaves (or fronds with ovate-lanceolate 

 leaflets,) and stems, which by their regularly placed oval marks, 

 indicate that the prototypes belonged to the arborescent ferns 

 which we observe in such great abundance in the coal sand- 

 stone of more southern latitudes ; a proof that the inhospitable 

 hyperborean region where they occur, at one time displayed the 

 noble scene of a luxuriant and stately vegetation. There is 

 also among the specimens of sandstone from the same place, 

 one bearing the impression of a thin, longitudinally-striated 

 stem, not unlike that of some reed. 



The coal itself is of a more or less slaty-structure, and ap- 

 proaches, in some specimens, to the nature of brown coal ; its 

 colour is of a brownish black : it is easily cleft, and the planes 

 of separation, which are without lustre, exhibit here and there 

 black shining spots, and lines apparently of a bituminous 

 nature. It emits no unpleasant smell when burning, and leaves 

 copious greyish-white ashes. This coal is not the same with 

 that of Disco Island, which contains the amber ; it differs from 

 it both in colour and structure. There is a piece of fine pitch 

 coal or jet among the objects picked up in the neighbourhood of 

 Cape Hearne. 



Part of the specimens of argillaceous and brown ironstone, 

 found in Melville Island, evidently belong to the same formation 

 as the sandstone so abundant in these parts, and are alike con- 

 comitants of the coal. They consist chiefly of rounded pieces, 

 and likewise of geodes : the former appear also to exist here in 

 the shape of a conglomerate. Some specimens from Table-hill 

 and its neighbourhood, as also from Liddon's Gulf, are marked 

 with the impressions of bivalves, particularly of a small, flat. 



