540 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [June 13, 



who, in lat. 75° 30', long. 92° 15', observed on the east side of 

 Wellington Channel the trunk of a fir-tree standing vertically, and 

 which, being cleared of the surrounding earth, &c., was found to 

 extend its roots into what he supposed to be the soil. 



If from this observation we should be led to imagine that all the 

 innumerable fragments of timber found in these polar latitudes be- 

 longed to trees that grew upon the spot, and on the ground over which 

 they are now distributed, we should be driven to adopt the anomalous 

 hypothesis, that, notwithstanding physical relations of land and water 

 similar to those which now prevail (i. e. of great masses of land high 

 above the sea), trees of large size grew on such terra firma within a 

 few degrees of the North Pole ! — a supposition which I consider to be 

 wholly incompatible with the data in our possession, and at variance 

 with the laws of isothermal lines. 



If, however, we adopt the theory of a former submarine drift*, 

 followed by a subsequent elevation of the sea-bottom, as easily ac- 

 counting for all the phaenomena, we may explain the curious case 

 brought to our notice by Sir Edward Belcher, by supposing that the 

 tree he uncovered had been floated away with its roots downwards, 

 accompanied by attached and entangled mud and stones, and lodged 

 in a bay, like certain " snags " of the great American rivers. Under 

 this view, the case referred to must be considered as a mere excep- 

 tion, whilst the general inference we naturally draw is, that the 

 vast quantities of broken recent timber, as observed by numerous 

 Arctic explorers, were drifted to their present position when the 

 islands of the Arctic Archipelago were submerged. This inference 

 is indeed supported by the unanswerable evidence of the sub- 

 marine associates of the timber ; for, from the summit of Coxcomb 

 Range in Banks's Land, and at a height of 500 feet above the sea, 

 Capt. M'Clure brought home a fine large specimen of Cyprina 

 Islandica^ which is undistinguishable from the species so common in 

 the glacial drift of the Clyde f ; whilst Capt. Sir E. Belcher found 

 the remains of whales on lands of considerable altitude in lat. 78" 

 north. 



Reasoning from such facts, all geologists are agreed in considering 

 the shingle, mud, gravel, and beaches in which animals of the Arctic 

 region are imbedded in many parts of Northern Europe, as decisive 

 proofs of a period when a glacial sea covered large portions of such 

 lands ; and the only distinction between such deposits in Britain and 

 those which were formed in the Arctic Circle, is, that the wood which 

 was transported to the latter has been preserved in its ligneous state 

 for thousands of years, through the excessive cold of the region. 



* Dr. Hooker informs me that all the specimens sent to him were collected in 

 mounds of silt, rising up from the level of the sea to 100 feet or more above it; 

 and he entirely coincides with me in the beUef that the whole of this timber 

 was drifted to the spots where it now lies. 



t In Parry's * Voyages ' (page 61) we learn that a number of marine shells, of 

 the Venus tribe, were found imbedded in the ravines of Byam Martin's Island ; 

 a fact which strengthens the view here adopted of the submergence of large 

 portions of these tracts at a very recent geological epoch. 



