GEOLOGY 215 



accompanied Sverdrup, collected much valuable information 

 concerning the rock formations of Ellesmere. A summary of 

 his observations is published as an appendix to Sverdrup's 

 ' New Land/ and is freely quoted from in the following. 



The rocks found on the north side of the Archer plateau, 

 in the eastern part of Ellesmere to the north of Cape Sabine, 

 are very interesting geologically, as they show the only trace 

 of an unbroken sequence of beds from the Huronian up through 

 the Cambrian to the Silurian limestones so widely distributed 

 on the Arctic islands. These rocks are described by Schei as 

 follows : ' At Cape Camperdown, on Bache peninsula, is found 

 granite overlain by an arkose-like conglomerate sandstone, in 

 flat strata, the dip being north-northwest. Its thickness here 

 probably does not exceed 500 feet, though the contour swells to 

 considerably greater magnitude by reason of intrusions of dia- 

 base, occasioning an additional thickness of perhaps 300 feet. 

 At its upper part this sandstone merges gradually, by inter- 

 stratification, into a series of gray, sandy and marl-like schists 

 and limestone conglomerates. From a few inches up to a couple 

 of yards in thickness these conglomerates and schists, continu- 

 ously interstratified, build up a series 600 to 900 feet in thick- 

 ness, interrupted by two compact beds of yellowish-gray dolom- 

 itic limestone about 150 feet in thickness. These are again 

 overlain by a series similar to the underlying one, excepting 

 that here the limestone conglomerates exceed the schists.' 



' In a detached block, in all probability originating from one 

 of the two 150-foot beds, were traces of fossils, of which one, 

 Leptoplastus sp., can be identified. In another detached block, 

 whose mother rock is not known, was found Anomocare sp. It 

 may be said with certainty after the finding of these fossils that 

 this series contains deposits of the Cambrian age.' 



' The second series of conglomerates is overlain by a light 

 gray insh- white limestone in a bed some 300 feet in thickness, 



