222 CKUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 



the surface of the islands, it would be impossible to map them 

 on the scale used in illustrating this report, and in consequence 

 the old colouring is followed here. 



CARBONIFEROUS. 



The southern boundary of the Carboniferous sandstones with 

 their included coal seams crosses the southern part of Banks 

 island in a north-northeast direction, and they consequently 

 cover the northern two-thirds of that island, while the extreme 

 northwest portion of Victoria island is also occupied by these 

 rocks. The western Parry islands on the north side of Melville 

 sound are almost wholly formed of these rocks, whose southern 

 boundary strikes northeast across the northern half of Corn- 

 wallis island. They are found again in Grinnell peninsula, the 

 northwest portion of Xorth Devon, and again on the western 

 side of Ellesmere, in the vicinity of Store Bjornekap, being 

 probably largely developed in the northeast part of that great 

 island. 



These rocks are described as follows by Professor Haughton : 

 1 The Upper Silurian limestones, already described, are suc- 

 ceeded by a most remarkable series of close-grained, white 

 sandstone, containing numerous beds of highly bituminous coal 

 and but few marine fossils. In fact the only fossil shell found 

 in these beds, as far as I know, in any part of the Arctic Archi- 

 pelago is a species of ribbed Airy pa, which I believe to be 

 identical with the Atrypa fallax of the Carboniferous slate of 

 Ireland. These sandstone beds are succeeded by a series of blue 

 limestone beds containing an abundance of marine shells, com- 

 monly found in all parts of the world where the Carboniferous 

 deposits are at all developed. The line of junction of these 

 deposits with the Silurian on which they rest is !N". E. to E. 

 N. E. (true). Like the former, they occur in low flat beds, 

 sometimes rising into cliffs, but never reaching the elevation 

 attained by the Silurian rocks in Lancaster sound.' 



