GEOLOGY 213 



Silurian limestones form the southern third of Banks 

 island, being' overlaid in the northern part by beds of Devonian 

 and lower Carboniferous age. Dr. Rae reports the entire south- 

 ern coast of Victoria island as being composed entirely of 

 Silurian limestone. 



' The northern part of King William land, with Matty island 

 to the east of it, are described by Sir John Koss as of limestone. 

 Simpson states the eastern part of the south shore to be also of 

 limestone, and Haughton dealing principally with the results 

 of M'Clintock's voyage writes as follows : " The east side of 

 King William island, though composed of Silurian limestone 

 like the rest of the island, is strewed with blocks of black and 

 red micaceous gneiss, like that of Montreal island, and black 

 metamorphic clay-slate, in which the crystals of mica are just 

 commencing to be developed. It is probable that the granitoid 

 rocks appear at the surface somewhere to the eastward of this 

 locality." 



* Numerous excellent though brief notes on the geology of the 

 eastern and southwestern coasts of the Boothian peninsula occur 

 in Sir John Ross' remarkable narrative referred to. From these 

 we learn that the eastern shore is composed of limestone to Port 

 Logan (latitude 71 21'), where a high range of hills which 

 is seen at a distance estimated at thirty miles inland at Creswell 

 bay (further north) and runs north-and-south impinged on 

 the shore, and was found to consist of granitoid and gneissic 

 rocks. Thence southward, from notes given in the body of the 

 narrative, a narrow border of limestone may skirt the shore to 

 about latitude 70 35'., though the geological appendix does not 

 make any mention of this.' 



' The narrow neck of the Boothian peninsula, which was 

 crossed by Ross on several lines, is, from his description, com- 

 posed of granitic rocks, with some outliers of limestone. One 

 of these, definitely mentioned in the narrative but not in the 



