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R. 1. Murchison on the Arctic Regions. 381 
nations of frost and thaw, and the influence of the sun, have 
necessarily become rotten; whilst all those fragments whieh re- 
mained enclosed in frozen mud or ice which have never been 
melted, would, when brought to light by the opening of ravines 
or other accidental causes, present just as fresh an appearance as 
the specimens now exhibited. 
‘The only circumstance within my knowledge which militates 
against this view is one communicated to me by Capt. Sir Edward 
Belcher, who in lat. 75° 30’, long. 92° 15’, observed on the east 
side of Wellington Channel the trunk of a fir-tree standing ver- 
tically, and which, being cleared of the surrounding earth, &c., 
was found to extend its roots into what he supposed to be the 
soil, 
If from this observation we should be led to imagine that all 
the innumerable fragments of timber found in these polar lati- 
tudes belonged to trees that grew upon the spot, and on the 
ground over which they are now distributed, we should be driven 
to adopt the anomalous hypothesis, that, notwithstanding phys- 
ical relations of land and water similar to those which now prevail 
(t. e. of great masses of land high above the sea), trees of large 
size grew on such terra firma within a few degrees of the orth 
Pole!—a supposition which I consider to be wholly incompatible 
With the data in our possession, and at variance with the laws of 
isothermal lines. 
If, however, we adopt the theory of a former submarine drift,” 
followed by a subsequent elevation of the sea-bottom, as easily 
accounting for all the phenomena, we may explain the curious 
case brought to our notice by Sir Edward Belcher, by supposing 
that the tree he uncovered had been floated away with its roots 
downwards, accompanied by attached and entangled mnd and 
stones, and lodged in a bay, like certain “snags” of the great 
‘merican rivers. Under this view, the case referred to must be 
Considered as a mere exception, whilst the general inference we 
naturally draw is, that the vast quantities of broken recent timber, 
a8 observed by numerous Arctic explorers, were drifted to their 
esent position when the islands of the Arctic Archipelago were. 
submerged. This inference is indeed supported by the unan- 
Swerable evidence of the submarine associates of the timber: for, 
from the summit of Coxcomb Range in Banks’s Land, and at a 
height of 500 feet above the sea, Capt. M‘Clure brought home a 
fine large specimen of Cyprina Islandica, which is undistin- 
8uishable from the species so common in the glacial drift of the 
* Dr: Hooker informs me that all the specimens sent to him were — in 
Mounds of silt. risi a to 100 feet or more above it; a 
pend dpuediorag Saag ee Ten tha wacks of thin tisnber was drifted 
