286 Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 



The coast is fringed with the ice-foot, forming a flat terrace 50 to 

 100 yards in breadth, stretching from the base of the cliffs to the sea- 

 margin. This wall of ice is not made up of frozen sea-water, but of 

 the accumulated autumn snowfall, which, drifting to the beach, is con- 

 verted into ice where it meets the sea- water which splashes over it. 



2. " On the Pal^ontological Eesults of the recent Polar Expedition 

 under Admiral Sir George Nares, K.C.B., F.K.S." By Capt. H. W. 

 Feilden, R.A., F.G.S., and Eobert Etheridge, Esq., F.E.S., F.G.S. 



In this communication the authors brought before the Society the 

 palaeontological results and details of the collection made by the 

 naturalists and other officers of the late expedition to the Arctic 

 Circle under Admiral Sir G. Nares. The purpose of the paper was 

 to record the presence of Silurian and Carboniferous fossils in the 

 highest latitude yet reached, 82° 45' N. Of the former group 60 

 species have been determined, ranging from the Lower to the Upper 

 Silurian, both Llandeilo and Wenlock types being present and 

 numerous, notably in the class Heteropoda, two species of the genus 

 Maclurea and Bellerophon, with Strophodonta and Baphistoma, etc., 

 also the genus Beceptaculites. Upper Silurian species of Actinozoa 

 belonging to Halysites, Favosites, Heliolites, Favistella, Zaphrentia, 

 Amplexus, Cyathophyllum, and AracTinophyllum were noticed, and 

 correlated with British forms when possible ; but, on the whole, 

 the facies of the Coelenterata is American rather than European. 

 Amongst the Crustacea five genera were noticed — Bronteus, Caly- 

 mene, Encrinurus, and Proetus, all Upper Silurian ; and the genus 

 AsapJius, associated with Maclurea, of Lower Silurian age. Ten 

 species of Brachiopoda belonging to the genera Pentamerus, Bhyn- 

 chonella, Chonetes, Atrypa, Strophomena, have been determined. 



Collections were made from twenty localities, ranging from lat. 

 79° 34' to 82° 40' N., notably the highest at Cape Joseph Henry, 

 where Capt. Feilden obtained a numerous Carboniferous-Limestone 

 fauna, numbering about thirty species, chiefly Brachiopoda and 

 Polyzoa, all determined species, and American in character rather 

 than British. Mr. Etheridge believed he had determined, through 

 certain forms of Brachiopoda, the presence in a ravine at Dana Bay 

 of the Devonian rock below the Carboniferous Limestone south of 

 Cape Joseph Henry and Feilden Isthmus, the want of plant-remains 

 preventing any correlation with the Ursa stage of Heer. It cannot 

 now be doubted that an extensive Silurian fauna extends to, and is 

 present from lat. 79° to lat. 82° N., illustrating both the lower and 

 upper divisions of this group of rocks, especially the equivalents of 

 our Wenlock series. Again, north of these there sets in a clearly 

 defined Carboniferous-Limestone fauna, reaching the extremity of 

 the highest latitude we know, and probably striking away beneath 

 the Polar sea to Spitzbergen, where the same species have been 

 described by Toula. The authors, through certain fossils, then 

 endeavoured to show that on the whole the facies of the Polar 

 palaeozoic fauna was more nearly allied to that of America than to 

 that of Europe, and thus must be correlated with it, although it was 

 shown that a large number of species are common to the two areas, 



