504 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 16, 





scribed is bounded to the eastward by a narrow belt of limestone, 

 beyond which there is a flat swampy and partly alluvial district, 

 forming the shores of Hudson's Bay. The west coast of the bay is 

 everywhere extremely low, and the depth of water decreases so gradu- 

 ally on approaching it, that in seven fathoms of water the tops of the 

 trees on the land are just visible from a ship's deck. Large boulder- 

 stones are scattered over the beach, and sometimes form shoals as far 

 as five miles from shore. A low and uniformly swampy aspect cha- 

 racterizes the surrounding country for several miles inland. The 

 upper soil presents a thin stratum of half-decayed mosses, imme- 

 diately under which we find a thick bed of tenacious and somewhat 

 shaley bluish clay containing boulder-stones. Beyond this occurs an 

 extensive deposit of limestone, completely encircling Hudson's Bay, 

 and following the course of the crystalline rocks to the extreme limit 

 of our researches in the Arctic Sea. 



Dr. Conybeare, in his Report on Geology, to the British Associa- 

 tion for 1832, had noticed the great similarity between the fossils 

 brought to England by the Arctic Expeditions of Parry and Franklin, 

 and those of the Silurian formations of our own country. The Geo- 

 logical Notices appended to the Narratives of those Expeditions by 

 Professor Jameson, Mr. Konig, and Sir John Richardson, who had 

 the advantage of Mr. Sowerby's assistance in examining the organic 

 remains, had previously led to the same view ; and it may now be 

 considered as finally established by Mr. Salter's examination and de- 

 scription of the extensive collections from the Arctic Regions *, 

 brought to England by the recent expeditions in search of Sir John 

 Franklin. The formation described by Dr. Sutherland as extending 

 along the shores of Wellington Channel and Barrow's Straits, and 

 considered by Mr. Salter to belong to the Upper Silurian group, has 

 since been identified, through its organic remains, at several points 

 along the coasts of Hudson's Bay. Recognized by Mr. Logan at 

 Lake Temiscamang, and at Lakes Abbitibie and St. John, on the 

 northern edge of the Laurentine Mountains, it has been successively 

 identified along the Moose and Albany Rivers flowing into James's 

 Bay, at Marten's Falls f, and along the northern edge of the granitic 

 plateau, thence to York Factory, along the Great Fish River, of Sir 

 George Back J, at Tgloolik §, and along both shores of Prince Re- 

 gent's Inlet II, to which last-mentioned locality Mr. Salter's investiga- 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. ix. p. 313. 



t By Sir John Richardson and Mr. Barnston. ** Boat Voyage through Rupert's 

 Land," vol, ii. X Dr- Fitton and Mr. Stokes. § Professor Jameson. 



II Sir Roderick Murchison, ' Siluria,' p. 428. I cannot omit, in this sketch of 

 the geology of so large a portion of the North American Continent, to refer to the 

 very accurate discrimination and description of its leading features contained in the 

 recently published work of Sir Roderick Murchison on ' Siluria.' To this import- 

 ant work, and to the long series of researches of which it is the fruit, the geolo- 

 gists of America must feel under the highest obligation, not only for the clear 

 and comprehensive view it exhibits of the whole phsenomena of Palaeozoic rocks 

 throughout that continent, but for the important and valuable aid it affords to the 

 explorer and investigator of its organic remains, by the establishment of a definite 

 and perspicuous standard of comparison and reference, by which its geological 

 formations can be identified and described. 



