(540 . DE. E. KCETTLITZ ON THE [NoV. 1 898, 



worn stones are found on the summits of Capes Neale, Grant, 

 Porbes, Flora, and Gertrude. 



There is a point in connexion with the more recent elevation of 

 the land which may be of some interest, and that is the peculiar 

 part played by the floe-ice in the formation of raised beaches. 



In the shallow bay on the south-western side of Bell Island 



1 was much struck by observing how the rivulets of water in the 

 summer washed down large quantities of sand and gravel upon the 

 floe, which at this locality did not float away, as it does at most 

 places at this season of the year, being evidently aground. So 

 much sand and gravel had been spread over the ice that at first 1 

 was unaware that I was really walking upon the floe and not on 

 land. This heaping up of sand and gravel prevents the sun from 

 melting the ice underneath, a process which may go on from year 

 to year. If at this time the land slowly rises a kind of raised 

 beach tends to be formed, under which is a layer of ice. 



This peculiar condition explained what I had observed upon a raised 

 beach, 55 feet above the sea, near the northern shore of Windy 

 Gully, where the surface had fallen in, forming a pit 12 to 15 feet 

 deep and 20 feet in diameter. The sides of this pit presented a 

 very good section, and showed an upper layer of waterworn stones 

 4 feet thick, resting upon a mass of ice 3 feet thick. Below this 

 was 2 feet of rounded stones, and then another layer of ice nearly 



2 feet thick, below which was another bed of stones. 



At Cape Mary Harmsworth I noticed a similar covering of 

 the ice with gravel, but brought about in a very different way. The 

 shore on the western side of the cape is evidently subject occasionally 

 to severe ice-pressure, during which the floe-ice, as it grounds close 

 to the shore, pushes up before it large quantities of beach-stones, 

 many of which are angular and not waterworn, and this beach- 

 material is often pushed on to the land-ice, sometimes in considerable 

 heaps, and thus, as in the former case, tends to prevent the melting 

 of the ice and to make it more or less permanent. 



Pits similar to that above mentioned are not infrequent here, 

 and it seems highly probable that they are caused by the melting 

 of buried ice, which, I may say, has been met with in many places 

 and under varying circumstances. 



Upon one part of the talus on the south-eastern side of Cape 

 Plora one sees (when at a distance) that the ground is cut up into 

 a number of large, more or less regular, pentagonal, hexagonal, or 

 square surfaces, 20 to 30 feet across, and these extend over a con- 

 siderable area. Upon closer examination it is found to be covered by 

 a thick carpet of moss, and the polj^gonal figures are caused by fissures 

 about 1 foot wide and 2 feet or more deep. Here, under a few 

 inches of soil and vegetation, there is a mass of solid ice, into which 

 the fissures enter for a couple of feet, but do not entirely penetrate. 



On some parts of the raised beaches at Cape Flora, and also on 

 the summit of Cape Neale, I noticed cracks in the soil or mud 

 assuming the polygonal form, but on a much smaller scale, the 



