1855.] MURCHISON ARCTIC REGIONS. 539 



specimens of wood from Prince Patrick's Island is of the same cha- 

 racter as that just mentioned, and in its microscopical characters 

 much resembles Pinus strobus, the American Pine, according to 

 Prof. Quekett, who refers another specimen, brought from Hecla and 

 Griper Bay, to the Larch. 



In like manner Lieut. Pim detected similar fragments of wood two 

 degrees further to the north, in Prince Patrick's Land, and also in 

 ravines of the interior of that island, where, as he informed me, a 

 fragment w^as found, like the tree described by M'Clure, sticking out 

 of the soil on the side of a gully. 



We learn, indeed, from Parry's 'Voyage,' that portions of a 

 large fir-tree were found at some distance from the south shore of 

 Melville Island, at about 30 feet above high-water mark, in latitude 

 74° 59' and longitude 106°*. According to the testimony of Capt. 

 M'Clure and Lieut. Pim, all the timber they saw resembled the 

 present drift-wood so well known to Arctic explorers, being irregularly 

 distributed, and in a fragmentary condition, as if it had been broken 

 up and floated to its present positions by water. If such were the 

 method by which the timber was distributed, geologists can readily 

 account for its present position in the interior of the Arctic Islands. 

 They infer that at the period of such distribution large portions of 

 these tracts were beneath the waters, and that the trees and cones 

 were drifted from the nearest lands on which they grew. A sub^ 

 sequent elevation, by which these islands assumed their present con- 

 figuration, would really be in perfect harmony with those great 

 changes of relative level which we know to have occurred in the 

 British Isles, Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia since the great 

 glacial period. The transportation of immense quantities of timber 

 towards the North Pole, and its deposit on submarine rocks, is by no 

 means so remarkable a phaenomenon as the wide distribution of 

 erratic blocks during the glacial epoch over Northern Germany, 

 Central Russia, and large portions of our island when under water, 

 followed by the rise of these vast masses into land. If we adopt this 

 explanation, and look to the extreme cold of the Arctic region in 

 the comparatively modern period during which this wood has been 

 drifted or preserved, we can have no difficulty in accounting for the 

 different states in which the timber is found. Those portions of it 

 which happen to have been exposed to the alternations of frost and 

 thaw, and the influence of the sun, have necessarily become rotten ; 

 whilst all those fragments which remained enclosed in frozen mud 

 or ice which have never been melted would, when brought to light 

 by the opening of ravines or other accidental causes, present just as 

 fresh an appearance as the specimens now exhibited. 



The only circumstance within my knowledge which militates against 

 this view is one communicated to me by Capt. Sir Edward Belcher, 



* " Serjeant Martin of the Artillery and Capt. Sabine's servant brought down 

 to the beach several pieces of a large fir-tree, Avhich they found nearly buried in 

 the sand at the distance of 300 or 400 yards from the present high-water mark, 

 and not less than 30 feet above the level of the sea." — Parry's Voyage for the 

 Discovery of the North-West Passage, p. 68. 



VOL. XI. — PART I. 2 O 



