I860.] L.OIONT SPITZBERGEN. 435 



ingly composed of the same grey, shaly, sandy limestone as almost 

 all the lower hills of East Spitzbergen ; but it had a perfectly flat top, 

 and the upper stratum, as well as another band about halt-way up, 

 seemed to consist of coal or some other black substance. This moun- 

 tain was a long way off ; but I think these black bands were each 20 

 or 30 feet thick ; and they seemed to be of harder substance than the 

 rest of the mountain, as the edges of both of them stood up perpen- 

 dicularly instead of participating in the 45° slope of the mountain. 

 At one side, where the mountain turned inland, I could perceive 

 that the lower of these two black bands thinned away gradually to 

 nothing. 



Of the other hill, I can hardly hope to give a description which 

 will convey an idea of its singularly grand and picturesque appear- 

 ance. It was a small hill, apparently not more than three or four 

 miles in circumference at the base, and about 600 or 700 feet high. 

 The lower two-thirds of its height consisted of a steep talus of 

 debris, thickly covered with a carpeting of brilliant mosses of every 

 imaginable tint. The upper third of the hill was composed of 

 bright-red or russet-coloiu-ed rocks, arranged in rough perpendicular 

 columns, looking exactly like a number of enormous half-decayed 

 trunks of trees standing on end in a huge faggot or bundle. The 

 detritus of this hill seemed to afford very rich pasture for the Rein- 

 deer : I shot nine around the foot of it. 



The last parts of Spitzbergen which I visited were Bell Sound 

 and Ice Fiord, on the west coast. These are both fine, large, well- 

 sheltered harbours, surrounded by high mountains, and are the first 

 and the last bays which are clear of drift-ice. We remained in Ice 

 Fiord until the 4th September, when the weather was still very 

 much milder than we had found it on the E. and S. coasts in July 

 and August. 



The hills around these bays are limestone, but not nearly so com- 

 pact and plainly stratified as in Eastern Spitzbergen. They are ex- 

 traordinarily full of fossils ; in some places it appears as if the hills 

 were actually composed of fossils*. Quantities of recent shells t also 

 lie about the watercourses and muddy flats. The rocks herb appear 

 to be crumbUng away very fast. In Bell Sound I obtained a piece 

 of siliceous limestone f which was sticking out of the face of a lime- 

 stone cliff like a sign-post, about 2 feel Long. 



In Ice Fiord I observed three well-defined ancient beaches, rising 

 one above the other, at intervals of about 20 feet. 



In the bed of a torrent in the same bay I found some round 

 stones exactly resembling rusty cannon-shot of different m/.csJ. 



I met a small vessel which in July touched at the land t<> the 

 N.E. of Spitzbergen, marked in the charts as Gillies Land; hut I 

 could obtain no information from them respecting it. exoepl that " it 

 was very like Spitzhergen, and contained no Walruses nor Rein- 

 deer." 



* Sec Mr. Baiter's Appendix. t Ifanj specimen- sent. 



♦ Sent. (See Appendix, p. 186 I 



