No. IV, APPENDIX. 397 



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we passed a very remarkable rounded boulder of gneiss 

 or granite ; it was 6 yards in circumference, and stood 

 near the beach, and some 15 or 20 yards above it ; one 

 or two masses of rounded gneiss, although very much 

 smaller, had arrested our attention at Port Leopold." 



It is well known that Captain Sir Kobert M'Clure 

 brought home specimens of pine-trees found in the 

 greatest abundance in the ravines on the west coast of 

 Baring Island; one of his specimens preserved in the 

 museum of the Eoyal Dublin Society measures 15 

 inches by 12 inches, and contains three knots that 

 prove it formed a portion of the stem high above its 

 root. The bark is not found on this specimen, which 

 does not represent the full thickness of the tree ; I 

 have estimated that this fragment contains 70 rings of 

 annual growth. 



Similar remains were found by Captain M'Clintock 

 and Lieutenant Mecham in Prince Patrick's Island, 

 and in Wellington Channel by Sir Edward Belcher. 

 On the coast of New Siberia, Lieutenant Anjou found 

 a clay cliff containing stems of trees still capable of 

 being used as fuel. The original observers aU agree in 

 thinking that these trees grew where they are now 

 found ; and Captain Osborn, in mentioning Sii- Eoderick 

 I. Murcliison's opinion that they are drift timber, justly 

 adds the remark, that a sea sufficiently free from ice 

 to allow of their being drifted from the south would 

 indicate also a climate sufficiently mild to allow of their 

 having grown upon the land where they now occur-. 

 Mr. Hopkins, in his anniversary address as President 

 of the Geological Society of London, has published a 

 remarkable geological speculation, which would account 

 for the facts above mentioned.* So far as the evidence 

 of drift boulders is concerned, I have shown that the 



* Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., vol. VIII. p. Ixiv. 



