92 TRAVELLED BOULDERS. 



cover tlie islands. These are mostly of an ave- 

 rage size of about a cubic foot, and very seldom 

 exceed two feet and a half in diameter. They 

 are curiously packed and levelled in some places, 

 as if they had been roughly made into a cause- 

 way for walking on by human agency. This 

 singular appearance I conceive to have been 

 given to them by enormous icebergs grazing 

 over and resting on the islands, ere yet they 

 became dry land, and acting to the boulders 

 like a roller on a gravel walk. Amongst these 

 native boulders I was a little surprised to find 

 a few very round and smooth boulders of red 

 granite of about one cubic foot downwards in 

 size, as there is no granite nearer than the 

 inaccessible peaks of the primitive ridges in the 

 centre of Spitzbergen, distant forty or fifty 

 miles. There were also some boulders of a hard 

 reddish stone like porphyry ; and some small 

 weather-worn blocks of a very hard white lime- 

 stone of a description different from any lime- 

 stone rock which I have anywhere seen in situ 

 in Spitzbergen. It seems to me that all these 

 interlopers must have travelled either from the 

 north-east part of Spitzbergen, or from some 

 unknown country in that direction, as it is clear 

 tliat they do not belong to this part of the 



