GEOLOGY. 333 



The Arctic area and North Eastern America are marked by 

 an absence of Permian rocks ; and it is worthy of note that 

 the strata of this age, occurring in Kansas, consist of con- 

 glomerates, shales with fossils allied to those of the coal 

 measures, and beds of gypsum resting conformably on the 

 carboniferous, indicating shallow water, proximity of land, 

 and lacustrine or inland sea conditions. Our limited know- 

 ledge of the Arctic regions renders it doubtful whether the 

 absence of the Permian in the northern area indicates that, 

 after the deposition of the carboniferous limestone, the sea 

 bottom was upheaved, and formed continental land until the 

 Liassic era, or whether the coal measures, Permian and 

 Triassic strata, were deposited or afterwards denuded, before 

 the deposition of the lias resting on the carboniferous lime- 

 stone of Eglinton Isle. That the former sequence occurred 

 is supported by the absence of the Triassic strata in the 

 Parry Archipelago. 



In America, the carboniferous rocks experienced a period 

 of physical disturbance, throwing them into folds and plica- 

 tions, happening in pre-triassic times as in England, the 

 trias lying on the upturned and denuded edges of the 

 American carboniferous. 



There would appear to b3 little doubt that the dip observ- 

 able in the carboniferous limestone of the Parry Archipelago 

 was obtained before the deposition of the lias, which occurs 

 directly upon it at various levels ; and it would appear to 

 be more probable that the trias was never deposited over this 

 area, than that it had been formed and denuded away in the 

 era intervening between plication of the carboniferous and the 

 subsidence of the land beneath the liassic sea. 



TERTIARY ROCKS. Miocene. Resting unconformably on the 

 azoic schists of Water-course Bay, on the west side of Smith 

 Sound, in the vicinity of Discovery Harbour, where the 

 'Discovery' wintered 1874-6, occurs a bed of coal from twenty- 

 five to thirty feet in thickness, overlaid by fine-grained black 

 shale and sandstone from which plant remains were collected 



