2 Sketch of the Geology of the Arctic Regions. 
UI. Melville Island, Port Bowen, and the Coasts of Prince Re« 
gent’s Inlet. : 
IV. Islands and Countries bordering on Hudson’s Bay. 
V. Greenland. 
VI. Iceland. 
VIL. The North of Europe, with the Steppes of Russia. 
VIII. Notices of Siberia, Kamschatka, and the Kurile Islands. 
I. The Rocky Mountains, near their northern termination, do not 
form a continuous range, but separate into bluffs, and detached 
masses, running in various directions, some parallel with each other, 
and others diverging as they approach the Arctic Sea. A few barren 
hills, rising in a deep morass, from three to twelve miles in breadth, 
divide them from the frozen Ocean. 
The formation of the mountains is of primitive rocks, over which 
a secondary covering, extending upwards, reposes upon their eastern 
sides many hundred feet from their bases. The sea coasts, from 
them, towards the McKenzie, are shallow, and skirted with islands, 
' sometimes margined with a gravelly beach, and at others with high 
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banks of sand, or limestone. Greenstone, sandstone, and limestone 
form the pebbles on the beach. 
On the Sea Coast West of the McKenzie, Captain Franklin col- 
lected the following specimens. Greywacke slate in columnar con- 
cretions ;_ globular, dark blackish grey splintery limestone ; worn 
pebbles of quartz ; lydian stone ; splintery limestone ; fine grained 
mountain green clay slate ; potstone, and rock erystal. Brown coal; 
clay iron stone ; pitch coal, and greenish grey limestone, were seen 
on the shores opposite the Rocky Mountains; and westward; to- 
wards Icy Cape, were found, greenish grey greywacke ; fine grain- 
ed greywacke slate; dark bluish greywacke slate, traversed by 
veins of quartz, and iron pyrites. On Flaxman’s Island, N, lat. 
70° 11’, W. long. 145° 50’, were seen fine grained greenish clay 
slate, “ obviously of primitive rock, supposed to be brought down by 
the rivulets and torrents from the Rocky Mountains.” 
From the East end of Lake Superior, slightly converging towards 
the Rocky Mountains, to the east side of Great Bear Lake, exists a 
formation of primitive rocks, but little elevated above the general 
level of the country. For seven hundred miles, beginning in lat. 
50°, between these two ranges, the space is occupied principally by 
horizontal strata of limestone, as far as 60° North, 
