284 Reports and Proceedings — 



with the long slender siliceous spicules of the genus Tetliya, and a 

 remarkable extinct gigantic species of Sea-pen, or Graphularia, allied 

 to that found in the London Clay of England, and closely allied ,to 

 the living form (Sarcoptilon) in Hobson's Bay. Under this head, 

 Prof. M'Coy suggests whether the supposed Mesozoic genus 

 Belemnites may have been a different interpretation of the same 

 object. The last plate gives further illustrations to those in pre- 

 ceding decades of the Graptolites of the gold-field slates, one a new 

 type, and the others identical with a species (G. Headi, Hall) found 

 in similar slates in Canada. — J.M. 



I^E:poI^TS j^istid iPE-ociBiEnDiisrcs-s. 



Geological Society of London. — April 17, 1878. — Henry Clifton 

 Sorby, Esq., F.E.S., President, in the Chair. — The following com- 

 munications were read : — 



1. " On the Geological Eesults of the Polar Expedition under 

 Admiral Sir George Nares, F.R.S." By Capt. H. W. Feilden, R.A., 

 P.G.S., and C. E. De Kance, Esq., E.G.S. 



The authors describe the Laurentian gneiss that occupies so large 

 a tract in Canada as extending into the Polar area, and alike under- 

 lying the older Palaeozoic rocks of the Parry Archipelago, the 

 Cretaceous and Tertiary plant-bearing beds of Disco Island, and the 

 Oolites and Lias of East Greenland and Spitzbergen. Newer than 

 the Laurentian, but older than the fossiliferous rocks of Upper 

 Silurian age, are the Cape-Rawson beds, forming the coast-line 

 between Scoresby Bay and Cape Cresswell, in lat. 82° 40' ; these 

 strata are unfossiliferous slates and grit dipping at very high angles. 



From the fact that Sir John Richardson found these ancient rocks 

 in the Hudson's Bay territory to be directl}'^ overlain by limestones, 

 containing corals of the Upper Silurian Niagara and Onondaga 

 group. Sir Roderick Murchison inferred that the Polar area was dry 

 land during the whole of the interval of time occupied by the 

 deposition of strata elsewhere between the Laurentian and the 

 Upper Silurian ; and the examination by Mr. Salter, Dr. Haughton, 

 and others of the specimens brought from the Parry Islands have 

 hitherto been considered to support this view. The specimens of 

 rocks and fossils, more than 2,000 in number, brought by the late 

 expedition from Grinnell and Hall Lands, have made known to us, 

 with absolute certainty, the occurrence of Lower Silurian species in 

 rocks underlying the tipper Silurian ; and as several of these Lower 

 Silurian forms have been noted from the Arctic Archipelago, there 

 can be little doubt that the Lower Silurians are there present also. 

 The extensive areas of dolomite of a creamy colour discovered by 

 M'Clintock around the magnetic pole, on the western side of 

 Boothia, in King William's Island, and in Prince of Wales Land, 

 abounding in fossils, described by Dr. Haughton, probably represent 

 the whole of the Silurian era and possibly a portion of the Devonian. 



The bases of the Silurians are seen in North Somerset, and consist 

 of finely stratified red sandstone and slate, resting directly on the 



