488 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
northward, owing to the difficulties encountered in finding 
sufficient spaces of open water when the vessels were stationary, 
I should not have ventured to place my views in such direct 
opposition to those announced by Dr. Jeffreys and Mr. Smith. 
The examination, however, of the recent sea-beds, which extend 
from the present sea-margin to a height of not less than a thousand 
feet, afford additional proof of the correctness of my views. These 
beds are being deposited at the present day under precisely the 
same physical conditions as those now elevated above the sea- 
level, which give satisfactory evidence that the molluscan fauna of 
the past, represented by these post-tertiary deposits, is precisely 
that now existing in the adjacent sea. At least forty or fifty spots 
in Grinnell Land and Hall Land, where these beds occur, were care- 
fully examined by independent observers, especially by Mr. Hart, 
Dr. Moss, Lieut. Parr, Lieut. Egerton, and myself; the sands and 
mud were also submitted frequently to microscopical investigation. 
The results of these independent examinations may be briefly 
summarised as follows:—Four species of Conchi/era were very 
generally distributed as fossil forms, usually they occurred in very 
considerable numbers; these were Pecten greenlandicus, Astarle 
borealis, Saxicava rugosa, and Mya truncata. The fossil 
Gastropoda were excessively rare; after days of searching we met 
with ouly a few specimens of T'richotropis borealis, one or two of 
Buccinum hydrophanum, a single Trophon clathratus, and a few 
Pleurotoma lenuicosta, P. exarata, and P. Trevellianum. Our 
dredgings showed that a nearly similar disproportion existed in 
the number of individuals between the recent Conchifera and 
Gastropoda. I deem, therefore, that our knowledge of the 
molluscan fauna of the area under discussion was acquired by us 
under most favourable circnmstances, large deposits of recently- 
emerged sea-bed were laid open to our investigations, aud the 
result showed a remarkable correspondence between their fauna 
and that of the neighbouring sea. The not unnatural conclusion 
I have arrived at is that the recent and post-tertian faunas com- 
bined, show very accurately the present condition of the molluscan 
fauna of Smith Sound and northward to the eighty-third degree. 
I can well understand, as Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys writes, that he has 
collected in the “ so-called glacial” and raised sea-beds in Great 
Britain, Scandinavia, and Canada, in two or three hours, a greater 
number of fossil species than those procured in the Expedition, 
