NOTES FROM AN ARCTIC JOURNAL. 409 
The valley by which we ascended to the highlands showed 
evident signs of having once been occupied by a small glacier, 
moraines and mounds were stretched across it, the trough of the 
valley being worked down to the gneiss; the softer strata of sand- 
stones and basalts were eroded, except on isolated mounds and 
knobs. These sandstones varied in colour from brick-red to dull 
white, split easily, and showed a great deal of ripple-markings; 
a long and careful search produced no trace of fossil remains. — 
To the northward, in the direction of Cairn Point and Rensselaer 
Harbour, stretch a series of ice-rounded gneissoid hills, of a general 
red colour. On the south rises a flat-topped range, called, by 
Dr. Hayes, Dodge Mountain, after one of his companions. This 
same range forms the northern escarpment of Foulke Fiord, and 
a similar formation occurs on its southern shores, notably at Cape 
Alexander, where the mer-de-glace descends to the sea on both of 
its flanks and isolates it from the mainland. From the station 
I reached, the inland ice was at least five miles distant, and to the 
northward a stretch of hills at least ten miles in width lay between 
it and the coast. At that season this border-land was almost free 
from snow, and gave one a fair opportunity of examining the surface. 
At the points visited by me, the evidence was conclusive that at 
some time or other the greater part of the land, now free from the 
mer-de-glace, had been subjected to the grinding-down process of 
ice-action; the moraines in the valleys, erratics perched on the 
slopes of the polished gneiss hills, the destruction of the softer strata 
in the valleys, all told the same tale. A very suggestive evidence 
appeared in a well-defined moraine stretching across a valley 
that debouched on the shore not far from where our ships were 
anchored, This moraine ran across the valley at an elevation of 
300 feet; at the time of our visit an impetuous torrent of melted 
snow had cut a section fifty feet deep through it, showing that it 
was composed of gneiss, basalts, and sandstones; the interstices 
between the blocks were filled with fine sand, and amongst the 
sand were imbedded multitudes of the shells of Sazicava rugosa 
(many with both valves still connected), Mya truncata, and 
sparingly Cardium islandicum and Tellina calcaria. This un- 
doubtedly, to my way of thinking, had been formed by the 
submerged snout of a glacier, and the question naturally arose 
whether at some former period the mer-de-glace had not a greater 
extension than at present, or whether the marks of ice-action over 
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