Sketch of the Geology of the Arctic Regions. 3 
The shores of Great Bear Lake are of primitive rocks, sometimes 
rising into elevations of eight hundred, or a thousand feet. Detach- 
ed blocks and gravel, probably the debris of the hills, consisting of 
quartzose sandstone, fragments of granite, and granite running into 
gneiss, are found on the surface, and in the vallies. The north 
shore of Bear Lake is formed by bowlders of limestone. Fort 
Franklin stands on a bay of the West coast, and the bottom of the 
bay, and the beach, are strewed with bowlders of primitive and other 
rocks, of which the following are some of the varieties. Coarse 
crystalline granite ; felspar, flesh red ; granite, with felspar paler ; 
quartz in small quantity ; fine grained granite; quartz and felspar, 
white, with garnets. Granite, felspar brick red ; quartz and augite, 
no mica. Porphyritic granite ; sienite ; porphyritic sienite ; reddish 
brown horn stone porphyry ; crystalline greenstone ; porphyritic 
greenstone ; pitchstone porphyry ; greenstone slate; amygdaloidal 
claystone porphyry ; dolomite ; limestone with corallines; chert ; 
white quartz; coarse sandstone; fine grained spotted sandstone ; 
striped sandstone; and dark red claystone. Some of the granite 
bowlders were recognised as the same which occur at Fort Enter- 
prize. 
. The soil in the vicinity of Fort Franklin is sandy, or gravelly, 
covering a bluish plastic, but not tenacious clay, of unknown depth, 
and during a greater part of the year firmly frozen. Narrow precip- 
itous ridges of limestone rise in the country west and north of Fort 
Franklin, which is otherwise level as far as the eye can reach. 
Bear Lake River. 
Sandstone of a yellowish grey color, iated with beds of bluish 
clay, forms the solid strata on the banks of the river. Imbedded in 
them are concretions of various sizes and irregular shapes, of a pur- 
plish iron brown, studded with crystals of sulphate of lime, and small 
round grains of quartz. Salt springs yielding excellent common salt 
fall into the river a little below the rapid, at that point where the Rocky 
Mountains first appear in the distance. ‘The walls of the rapid are 
a hundred and twenty feet high, and three miles long, consisting of 
horizontal strata of “earthy looking stone intermediate between clay 
and sandstone.” Lignite with impressions of fern appears in the 
banks, also ammonites in a brown iron shot sandstone. The lime- 
stone ridge below the rapid stands on a narrow base, and its general 
