618 report — 1878. 



proved ; there can be little doubt, from the universal presence of water-logged and 

 partially decomposed pumice on the bottom, and from the constant occurrence of 

 particles of volcanic minerals in the clay, that the red clay is formed in a great 

 measure by the decomposition of the lighter products of submarine volcanoes drifted 

 about by currents, and finally becoming saturated with water and sinking ; and it 

 is well known that both iron and nickel in a metallic state are frequently present in 

 minute quantities in igneous rocks. I think it is conceivable that the metallic 

 spherules may be derived from this source. 



So far as we can judge, after a most careful comparative examination, the 

 deposit which is at present being formed at extreme depths in the ocean, does not 

 correspond either in structure or in chemical composition with any known geolo- 

 gical formation ; and, moreover, we are inclined to believe, from a consideration of 

 their structure and of their imbedded organic remains, that none of the older forma- 

 tions were laid down at nearly so great depths — that, in fact, none of these have 

 anything of an abyssal character. These late researches tend to show that during 

 past geological changes abyssal beds have never been exposed, and it seems highly 

 probable that until comparatively recent geological periods such beds have not been 

 formed. 



It appears now to be a very generally received opinion among geologists — an 

 opinion which was first brought into prominence by Professor Dana — that the 

 " massive " eruptions which originated the mountain chains which form the 

 skeleton of our present continents, and the depressions occupied by our present 

 seas, date from the secular cooling and contraction of the crust of the earth, from 

 a period much more remote than the deposition of the earliest of the fossiliferous 

 rocks ; and that during the period chronicled by the successive sedimentary 

 systems, with many minor oscillations by which limited areas have been alternately 

 elevated and depressed, the broad result has been the growth by successive step3 

 of the original mountain chains and the extension of the continents by their 

 denudation, and the corresponding deepening of the original grooves. If this view 

 be correct — and it certainly appears to me that the reasoning in its favour is very 

 cogent — it is quite possible that until comparatively recent times no part of the 

 ocean was sufficiently deep for the formation of a characteristic abyssal deposit. 



Time will not allow me even to allude to the interesting results which have 

 been obtained from the determination of the density of sea water from different 

 localities and different depths, and from the analysis of sea water, and its contained 

 gases, and perhaps these results have been scarcely sufficiently worked out as yet 

 to afford safe bases for generalization.. I must, however, say a few words as to 

 certain additions which have been made to our knowledge of the two hitherto 

 impregnable strongholds of the frost, the regions round the North and South 

 Poles. 



The Arctic Regions. — The question which has of late held the most prominent 

 place in all discussions about the conditions of the Arctic Regions, particularly 

 since the voyage of Dr. Hayes, is whether it is possible that there can be at all 

 times or at any time anything in the form of an open Polar sea. This question 

 seems now to be virtually settled, and in the most unsatisfactory manner imagin- 

 able. There can be no doubt that in the year 1871, Count Wilczek in the 

 schooner Isbjorn found the sea between Novaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen nearly 

 free from ice, and that the same sea presented to Weyprecht and Payer in the 

 following year a dangerous stretch of moving and impenetrable pack. There can 

 be no doubt that in the year 1861 Dr. Hayes gazed over an expanse of open water 

 where in 1875-6 Captain Nares studied the conditions of palreocrystic ice. It is 

 evident therefore that the Polar basin, or at all events such portions of it as have 

 been hitherto reached, is neither open sea nor continuous ice, but a fatal compro- 

 mise between the two, an enormously heavy pack formed by the piling up and 

 crushing together of the floe of successive years, in frequent movement, breaking 

 up and shifting according to the prevailing direction of the wind, and leaving open, 

 now here and now there, lanes and vistas of deceptive open water, which may be 

 at any moment closed and converted into a chaotic mass of hurtling floe-bergs by 

 a hurricane from another direction. It seems, however, that in certain seasons 



