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ARCTIC MOLLUSCAN FAUNA. 
By H. W. Fettnen, C.M.Z.S., F.G.5., 
Naturalist to the late Arctic Expedition. 
Two papers have lately been published, one in ‘The Annals 
and Magazine of Natural History,’ “On the Recent Mollusca 
collected during the Arctic Expedition of 1875-76,” by Mr. Edgar 
A. Smith; the other, “On the Post-tertiary Fossils from Grinnell 
Land,” by Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys, read at the Plymouth meeting of 
the British Association, 1877. I am much indebted to both of 
these gentlemen for their determinations of the species brought 
back by the Arctic Expedition, and in their able hands I leave the 
nomenclature. I must, however, dissent from a portion of the 
general views expressed by both. Mr. Smith writes: —“It is 
somewhat disappointing, considering that unexplored regions were 
searched, that only a single new form was procured. The entire 
collection consists of thirty-four species. This may appear a very 
small number; but the difficulty experienced in collecting in such 
northern climates in a great measure accounts for such small 
results. It by no means proves that there is any great scarcity of 
molluscan life in the regions investigated. In all probability 
further research will discover many more known forms, thus 
showing that the fauna northward does not change very materially 
from that existing further south in Davis Strait.”. Dr. Gwyn 
Jeffreys writes: —“I cannot help sharing Mr. Smith’s expression 
of disappointment with the conchological results of the Expedition. 
The number of post-tertiary, as well as of recent, species is very 
scanty. In analogous or apparently similar cases of so-called 
‘glacial’ and raised sea-beds in Great Britain, Scandinavia, and 
Canada, which I have examined, I collected in two or three hours 
a greater number of fossil species than those procured in: the 
Expedition.” 
I cannot help thinking that the feeling of disappointment 
experienced by both of these naturalists arises from their not 
having taken into due consideration the physical conditions 
appertaining to the area from whence these collections were 
derived, and also not having sufficiently estimated the resulls of 
prior expeditions to the same quarter of the globe. 
