Fe main object of the Gjøa expedition was the sailing of the 
North-West Passage, and the determination of the present position of the 
Magnetic Pole. In addition there were meteorological studies, and the 
collecting of ethnographic and natural history material, etc. 
A quantity of geological material was brought back, mainly con- 
sisting of collections of fossils which had been made by Lieutenant Gop- 
FRED Hansen, the second in command. 
One collection — gathered on Beechey Island in Lancaster Sound — 
consists of (Upper) Silurian forms, and will be described by Professor 
JoHAN KIÆR. 
In the following brief notice we shall describe some Ordovician fos- 
sils, partly collected at Cape Christian Frederik on the west coast of 
Boothia Felix in September 1903, partly at various places on the south coast 
of King William Land during the winter of 1903— 1904. Unfortunately, on 
account of inadequate labelling etc., it is not possible now to determine 
exactly which specimen was brought from one district and which from 
another. The specimens themselves provide but little guidance, since they 
exhibit a very great conformity both from a faunistic and a petrographic 
point of view. According to a report given by Lieut. Goprrep Hansen, 
the variety of rock where the fossils were collected at the various places 
— a light grayish yellow dolomite — had a very uniform appearance. In 
the opinion of Lieut. Hansen the fossils belong to the places at which they 
were found. The rock as is usual in Arctic regions, was greatly split up 
on the surface, and the specimens were obtained from such a broken rock. 
The present collection of Ordovician fossils offers nothing new in 
a paleontological respect. Although some of the fossils are represented by 
very beautiful specimens, the material on the whole does not exhibit any 
especially good state of preservation. The specimens are however of great 
interest as being collected in such rarely visited regions. If the specimens 
from Cape Christian Frederik were taken from rock 7» situ, as is extre- 
