ARCTIC ISLANDS 115 



Ellef Ringnes. . 

 Amund Ringrnes 

 King Christian . 

 North Cornwall 



Total area 520.800 



The configuration and the physical features of the islands 

 depend upon the character of the rocks that form them; in 

 consequence, a brief description of the geology of these northern 

 regions is here given. 



Granites, gneisses and other crystalline rocks, very similar to 

 those forming the Archaean system of more southern regions, 

 occupy the eastern shores of the great islands fronting on Baffin 

 bay and Davis strait, from Smith sound to Hudson strait. On 

 Ellesmere island these rocks form a wide band down the east side 

 from the neighbourhood of Cape Sabine to Jones sound, where 

 the western boundary is upwards of fifty miles from the mouth 

 of the sound. They occupy the eastern part of North Devon, 

 reaching, on its south side, some seventy miles up Lancaster 

 sound. The whole of Bylot island and that part of northern 

 Baffin island to the eastward of Admiralty inlet is formed of 

 these rocks. The great island of Baffin has upwards of three- 

 quarters of its area underlain by Archaean granites and other 

 crystalline rocks, while the eastern side of Southampton belongs 

 to that formation which is also found at Salisbury, Nottingham 

 and Charles islands of Group I. 



To the westward of this wide rim of Archaean rocks is a great 

 basin which has been filled with deposits of limestone, sandstone 

 and other bedded rocks belonging to the Palaeozoic or middle 

 formations of the earth's crust. These rocks extend upward 

 from the Silurian to the Carboniferous. 



The lower rocks, consisting largely of limestones, are the most 

 widely distributed. They extend southward and westward far 

 beyond the limits included in this report. The rocks newer 



