118 Prof. A. E, Nordenskiold — Geology of Spitzbergen. 



throughout in every direction ; it was much harder than the blue 

 clay above and below, and relatively heavy. There seemed to be 

 only one band of it ; and its fragments were picked out and thrown 

 aside by the clay-diggers, who called it " Harper." 



This has been brought to my remembrance more especially by the 

 following extract from Prof. Wyville Thomson's Eeport of the 

 Challenger Expedition, read before the Eoyal Society, November 18, 

 1875 (see Proceed. Koy. Soc. vol. xxiv. p. 33 ; and Nature, vol. xiii. 

 p. 70, November 25, 1875) : — "On the 17th of June we sounded in 

 1875 fathoms, with a bottom of bluish-grey clay and a bottom 

 temperature of 1°-7C., forty miles to the S.E. of No-Sima Lighthouse 

 (Japan). The trawl was put over, and it brought up a large quantity 

 of the bottom, which showed the clay was in a peculiar concretionary 

 state, run together into coherent lumps, which were bored in all 

 directions by an Annelid of the Aphroditacean group. In many 

 cases the Annelids were still in the burrows." 



The analogy of hardened clay, bored by Annelids, in deep-sea 

 clay, with the Annelid band of the Gault above mentioned, is suffi- 

 ciently striking to be noticed, although the clays and the Annelids 

 referred to probably differ, respectively, in several characters, and 

 the depths of the two seas were also greatly different. The modern 

 deposit, however, may throw light on the history of part, at least, of 

 the old Aptian formation. 



I believe the " Harper " to lie in the upper portion of the lowest 

 third of the Gault, ^ which is here very rich with Foraminifera and 

 Entomostraca. These are ignored in Messrs. De Kance and Price's 

 lists of Gault Fossils ; but they have had justice shown to them in 

 Mr. Topley's Table IV. Appendix I., '^ Memoirs Geol. Survey, Geology 

 of the Weald," 1875, pp. 423-426. The old clay-pits of the West- 

 well Leacon yielded several of the fossils enumerated in Dr. Fitton's 

 " Strata below the Chalk," Geol. Trans, ser. 2, vol. iv. pp. 112, 113. 



I may add that, from a comparison with the Microzoa brought up 

 from known depths in the present seas, the Foraminifera of the 

 Gault (like those of the London Clay) seem to my friend Prof. W. 

 K. Parker, F.E.S., to indicate a depth of about 100 fathoms. 



V. — Sketch of the Geology of Ice Sound and Bell Sound, 



Spitzbergen. 



By Professor A. E. Nordenskiold, of Stockholm ; 



For. Corr. Geol. Soc. Lond. 



Part III. 



{Continued from the February Number, page 75.) 



VI. Jura. — In all probability the strata which form the summit of 

 the mountain north of Eeindeer Valley in Saurie Hook belong to 

 the Jurassic formation, which besides occupies a considerable extent 

 on Spitzbergen, from the entrance of Ice Sound to Cape Agardh in 



^ The junction of the Lower Greensand with the Gault used to be well seen in a 

 sand-pit at the southern limit of the Leacon Common (now inclosed), about a quarter 

 of a mile S.E. of the brickyard above alluded to. 



