538 MURCHISON^ ARCTIC GEOLOGY AND DRIFT-WOOD. 



gjrpsum was also procured by Lieut. Pirn from the north-western 

 shores of Melville Island. In the collection before us we see 

 silicilied stems of Plants, which Lieut. Pim gathered on various 

 points between Wellington Channel on the east, and Banks Land 

 on the west. Similar silicified Plants were also brought home by 

 Capt. M'Clure from Banks Land, and through the kindness of 

 Mr. Barrow, to whom they were presented, they are now ex- 

 hibited, together with a collection made by Capt. Kellett, which 

 he sent to Dr. J. E. Gray, of the British Museum, who has 

 obligingly lent them for comparison. 



I had requested Dr. Hooker to examine all those specimens 

 which passed through my hands, and I learn from him that he 

 will prepare a description of them, as well as of a great number 

 from the same region which had been sent to his father, Sir W. 

 Hooker, associated, like those now under consideration, with 

 fragments of recent wood. 



Of Secondary Formations no other evidence has been met with 

 except some fossil bones of Saurians, brought home by Sir E. 

 Belcher, from the smaller islands north of Wellington Channel, 

 and of these fossils Sir Edward will give a description. Of the 

 old Tertiary rocks, as characterised by their organic remains, no 

 distinct traces have, as far as I am aware, been discovered, and 

 hence we may infer that the ancient submarine sediments, having 

 been elevated, remained during a very long period beyond the 

 influence of depository action. 



Let us now see how the other facts, brought to our notice by 

 the gallant Arctic explorers who have recently returned to our 

 country, bear upon the relations of land and water in this Arctic 

 region during the quasi- modern period when the present species 

 of Trees were in existence. Capt. M'Clure states that in Banks 

 Land,* in latitude 74° 48', and thence extending along a range of 

 hills varying from 350 to 500 feet above the sea, and from half 

 a mile to upwards inland, he found great quantities of wood, some 

 of which was rotten and decomposed, but much of it sufficiently 

 fresh to be cut up and used as fuel. 



Whenever this wood was in a well-preserved state, it was either 

 detected in gullies or ravines, or had probably been recently 

 exhumed from the frozen soil or ice. In such cases, and parti- 

 cularly on the northern faces of the slopes where the sun never 

 acts, wood might be preserved any length of time, inasmuch as 

 Capt. M'Clure tells me he has eaten beef which, though hung up 

 in his cold larder for two years, was perfectly untainted. 



The most remarkable of these specimens of well-preserved 

 recent wood is the segment of a tree which, by Capt. M'Clure's 

 orders, was sawn from a trunk sticking out of a ravine, and which 

 is now exhibited. It measures 3 feet 6 inches in circumference. 

 Still more interesting is the cone of one of these Fir-trees which 

 he brought home, and which apparently belongs to an Abies 

 resembling A. alba, a plant still living within the Arctic circle. 

 One of Lieut. Pirn's specimens of wood from Prince-Patrick's 



* -S'ee Prof. O'Heer's Memoir, above, p. 379. 



