344 E. M. KINDLE 



French engineers^ many years ago in connection with the proposed 

 submarine railway tunnel showed the sea floor to be free of uncon- 

 solidated or recent deposits from the French to the English coast 

 between Dover and Calais. Because of the prevailing westerly and 

 southwesterly winds the normal littoral drift in the English channel 

 is eastward, so that most of the detritkl material which passes 

 through it doubtless comes to rest in the North Sea. Much of the 

 coarse materials stop on the Dogger bank. This bank which is 

 bounded by the 20-fathom line and covered by quartz sand is 

 comparatively free from the finer silt which occurs in the deeper 

 parts around it.- The sand and mud formations now forming in 

 the North Sea represent the time interval since the submergence of 

 the North Sea and English Channel area. These deposits probably 

 thin out gradually toward the Channel where this considerable 

 time interval is entirely unrepresented by any sediments. This 

 it will be noted gives a relationship of areas where a formation is 

 absent, relatively thin, and comparatively thick, which when met 

 with in the consolidated rocks is generally ascribed to overlap. 

 The Potsdam sandstone of New York and Ontario affords a compar- 

 able example. It is absent in the upper Ottawa valley, less than 

 100 feet thick over much of the southeastern Ontario but reaches 

 a thickness of several hundred feet in eastern New York. Its 

 progressively decreasing thickness from Lake Champlain to Ottawa 

 is generally ascribed to overlap. 



In the enclosed Arctic seas west of Greenland McMillan 

 reported currents with a usual velocity of about 2 miles an hour.-* 

 In the same region Low has made the important observation that 



With bodies of water having a general north-south trend the current will 

 flow north on the east side and south on the west side while in east and west 

 bodies the direction will be west on the north side and east on the south side.^ 

 On the Greenland side a southerly current comparatively free of ice allows the 



'A. Strahan, "The English Channel," Nature, XXV (1882), 463-67; Land. 

 Gebg. Jour., XXXI, 420. 



^ Royal Comm. on Coast Erosion and Aforestation, III (191 1), Part i, p. 9. 



3 J. G. McMillan, Report of the Cruise of the Dominion Government Steamer Arctic 

 in Northern Waters, etc., in igo8-g, p. 469. 



^ A. P. Low, Cruise of the Neptune (1906), p. 289. Canadian Government. 



