226 cruise OF THE neptune 
MESOZOIC. 
The discovery of the Sverdrup group of islands has greatly 
extended our knowledge of the Mesozoic rocks of the Arctic 
basin. The Franklin search parties discovered rocks of this age 
on the northern shores of the Parry islands; at Point Wilkie, 
in Prince Patrick island; Rendezvous hill, near the north- 
western extreme of Bathurst island and at Exmouth island and 
places in the vicinity, near the northwest part of North Devon. 
The explorations from the fram now show that these are but 
the southern edge of a wide basin of these rocks which form the 
islands of King Oscar, Ellef and Amund ringes, while they 
constitute the lowlands of Axel Heiberg and the western shores 
of Ellesmere along both sides of Eureka sound. There they 
consist largely of sandstones with shales, schists and limestones. 
As before stated, Schei hints that their eastern extension to 
the shores of Kennedy channel may be marked by the tilted and 
folded strata, classed by De rance as the Cape Rawson Series, 
of supposed Cambrian age. 
tertiary. 
Deposits containing fossil wood were discovered by m'clin- 
tock, M'Clure and Armstrong in the southwestern part of 
Prince Patrick island and on the northwest side of Banks 
island. 
' At Ballast beach, on Banks land, large quantities of fossil 
and sub-fossil wood occur, which Prof. Heer refers to the Mio- 
cene in his Flora Fossilis Arctica, in which the following 
species are described by Cramer: Pinus macclurii, Pinus 
Armstrongi, Cupressinoxylon pulchrum, cupressinoxylon poly- 
ommatum, cupressinoxylon dubium, betula m'clintockii. 
In many places along the western side of Ellesmere, in the 
depressions between the mountains, thick deposits of sand with 
embedded strata of lignite were found. Similar deposits were 
