1855.] ISBISTER — NORTH AMERICA, ETC. 499 



On the Geology of Rainy Lake, South Hudson's Bay. By Dr. Bigsby. 1854. 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. x. 



On the Drift of the Lake of the Woods and South Hudson's Bay. By Dr. 

 Bigsby. 1851. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol, vii. 



Narrative of the Arctic Land Expedition to the Mouth of the Great Fish River. 

 By Captain Back, R.N. Appendix on Geology. By W. H. Fitton, M.D. Lon- 

 don, 1836. 



Journal of a Boat Voyage through Rupert's Land and the Arctic Sea, in search 

 of the Discovery Ships under Sir John Franklin. By Sir John Richardson. 

 London, 1851. 



On some points of the Physical Geography of North America. By Sir J. 

 Richardson. 1851. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. vii. 



Report of a Geological Survey of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, and inciden- 

 tally of a portion of Nebraska Territory [including the Red River of Lake Wini- 

 peg]. By David Dale Owen. Philadelphia, 1852. 



The chief sources of information, however, on which I have relied 

 in confirmation of my own observations are the valuable Memoirs of 

 Mr. Salter on Arctic Silurian Fossils, published in the Quarterly 

 Journal of the Geological Society, vol. ix., and in the Appendix to 

 Dr. Sutherland's Journal of Capt. Penny's Voyage, and the exten- 

 sive researches and the numerous able publications of the great 

 Arctic traveller Sir John Richardson, to whom science is indebted 

 for nearly all that is known of the natural history of the vast region 

 surrounding Hudson's Bay. 



The collections of rock-specimens and minerals brought to Eng- 

 land by the expeditions of discovery through this territory, to which 

 Sir John Richardson was attached, and the various Arctic expe- 

 ditions by which its northern shores have been traced, as well as by 

 those recently engaged in the search for Sir John Franklin, are very 

 extensive, and throw much valuable light on the mineral structure of 

 the various formations which prevail in the northern regions of Ame- 

 rica. It was not, however, until within the last few years that any 

 considerable collection had been made of the organic remains belong- 

 ing to these formations, by which alone their relative ages and their 

 true characters can be determined. Some of the fossil remains 

 alluded to have been described and figured by Mr. Salter in the 

 papers already referred to, others by Dr. Dale Owen, of the U.S. 

 Geological Survey, Dr. Buckland, and others ; and some (as will be 

 subsequently noticed) have been described, though only incidentally 

 and in general terms, by Sir John Richardson, Mr. Sowerby, the 

 late Mr. Konig of the British Museum, and the late Professor Jame- 

 son of Edinburgh. A considerable number remain still undescribed 

 in the Museum of the Edinburgh University, the British Museum, 

 the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street, and the Museum 

 of Haslar Hospital, or are mentioned for the first time in the present 

 paper. 



An examination of these specimens leaves no doubt of the existence 

 of a vast development of palaeozoic deposits, extending with little in- 

 termission (so far as is known) from the northern frontiers of Canada 

 and the United States to the farthest point to which our researches 

 have extended in the Arctic Ocean, and from Hudson's Bay on the 

 east to near the Rocky Mountains on the west, — presenting alto- 



