378 Correspondence — Coi. H. W. Feilden, B.A. 



Stanbridge pit, and were presented to tbe Woodwardian Museum 

 by Mr, H. Coningsby ; they are angular blocks, 10 x 6 X 6 and 

 7x7x6 inches in size, and weigh 16 lbs. and 13 lbs. respectively. 

 Attached to their surface are numerous specimens of PJicatula 

 sigUHna, Woodw., and Spondylus striatus (Sow.), and small con- 

 cretions of iron pyrites. The quartzite is rather coarse-grained, and 

 was originally a quartz-conglomerate. H. Woods. 



NOTE ON THE ERRATIC BLOCKS OF POLARIS BAY AND OTHER 

 LOCALITIES IN NORTH GREENLAND. 

 Sir, — I should like to place upon record a statement I ought to 

 have published years ago, but which at the time the subject was 

 fresh I thought of too little moment to record. Since then I notice 

 that what I believe to be an erroneous deduction, has been cited by 

 authors of eminence as a fact, without any qualification. The late 

 Dr. Emil Bessels, when in Hall Land, North Greenland, with the 

 "Polaris" Expedition, noticed that the land in the vicinity of the 

 " Polaris " winter quarters was strewn up to elevations of over 

 1,000 feet with erratic ice-borne boulders, entirely distinct in 

 character from the rocks in situ. Bessels, who was a man of high 

 attainments, and a good observer, misled, I believe, by many of 

 these erratics having a superficial resemblance in composition to 

 rocks found in South Greenland, made the sweeping assertion^ that 

 these erratics came from South Greenland ; and that the current and 

 ice-drift in Smith Sound and Robeson Channel, at a former period 

 when these erratics were dispersed, had been from south to north, 

 and not from north to south as is the case to-day. When I sojourned 

 in Grinnell Land, during 1875-76, I was aware of Bessels' opinion, 

 and made many observations on the boulders we met with, and on 

 their distribution. I found them as Bessels described, even on the 

 higher altitudes uncovered by snow, notably on Dean Mount, near 

 the winter quarters of the " Alert," in 82° 27' N., at an altitude of 

 ],200 feet. I observed, however, what Bessels seems to have over- 

 looked, that boulders of the same character were strewn over hill- 

 sides and in the valleys down to the present sea-level, and that on 

 some ancient sea-beach at a hundred feet of altitude the stranded 

 boulders were lying under precisely the same conditions as the 

 boulders that now rest on the seashore of to-day, and which have 

 been recently stranded, Grinnell Land is an area of very rapid 

 elevation, and it is only reasonable to argue that the agent that 

 strands the ice-worn boulder to-day on the fore-shore of Grinnell 

 Land is the same as placed the boulders at an altitude of 1,200 feet 

 when that point stood at sea-level. The agent that grounds the 

 erratic of to-day is the ice-raft of the palseocrystic sea, and Bessels 

 was certainly mistaken when he ascribed the origin of these rocks to 

 South Greenland, and to clench his argument had to invoke a change 

 in oceanic circulation to account for the presence of the boulders on 

 the shores of the Polar Ocean, Bessels made a strong point that 



1 Bull de la Soc. Geog. Paris, p. 298, March, 1875. U.S. Naval Report, 1873,: 

 p. 548. Arctic Manual, p. 553, 1875. 



