26 A Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



APPENDED REPORT. 



The Pleistocene Fossils collected on the Arctic Coast of the 



Yukon and Northwest Territories by the Canadian 



Arctic Expedition of 1913-18. 



By WILLIAM HEALEY DALL I 



The fossils listed in this report are without doubt all Pleistocene. They 

 belong to species now living in adjacent waters which form part of the Western 

 Arctic fauna. The collection was made largely by Mr. J. J. O'Neill, and from 

 the notes on the labels, the horizon in which the fauna occurs seems to be 

 represented over a very large extent of the Arctic coast from Herschel Island, 

 Yukon Territory to Bathurst inlet, Northwest Territories, and to be identical 

 with that described by Schrader 2 under the name of the Gubik sand, on the 

 Arctic shore of Alaska. 



It is rather surprising that the Pliocene Nuwok formation which in Alaska 

 underlies the Gubik sand in many places, with a very characteristic and interest- 

 ing fauna, is not represented in the Canadian collection. 



The material from Herschel island and from the Mackenzie River delta is 

 in a matrix which in each case is of fine grey silt which immediately dissolves 

 in water, but has when nearly dry a certain hard toughness, and when quite 

 dry breaks up into angular fragments. It contains, intermixed with Pleistocene 

 marine shells, a proportion of rock fragments or marine fossils of the Devonian 

 formations so extensively developed in the Yukon Territory to the south and 

 which may have been transported on ice cakes or in the roots of uprooted trees 

 in the spring freshets. Three pieces of brown sandstone from the delta (No. 1885) 

 contain Devonian brachiopod remains, and small palaeozoic brachiopods, possibly 

 young Meristella, were found loose in the silt from Herschel island. 



The following are the species represented in the collection from each of the 

 numbered stations 



Station 1926, south side Herschel island, Yukon Territory 



Chrysodomus cf. saturus Martyn (fragm.). 



Buccinum tenue Gray (fragm.). 



Natica sp. cf. clausa Brod. & Sby. (very young). 



Neptunea beringi Dall (fragm.). 



Tachyrhynchus erosus Couthouy. 



Astarte borealis Schumacher. 



Astarte arctica Gray. 



Astarte fabula Reeve. 



Astarte alaskensis Dall. 



Cyrtodaria kurriana Dunker. 

 Station 1942, east side of Herschel island 



Natica sp. (very young). 



Astarte borealis Schumacher. 



Astarte fabula Reeve. 



Astarte alaskensis Dall. 



J By permission of the Director of the United States Geological Survey. 

 2 F. C. Schrader, United States Geological Survey, Professional Paper No. 20, Washington, 

 1904, p. 20 et seq. 



For comparison with this list the reader is referred to J. Gwyn Jeffrey's list of Pleistocene fossils found in the northeas * 

 part of the Arctic Archipelago (The Post-tertiary fossils procured in the late Arctic Expedition; with notes on some of the 

 Recent or Living Mollusca from the same Expedition. Annals Natural History, vol. 20, ser. 4, 1877, pp. 229-388.) 



