MURCHISON, ARCTIC GEOLOGY AND DRIFT-WOOD. 539 



Island is of the same character as that just mentioned, and in 

 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 in- 

 formed me, a fragment was found like the tree described by 

 Capt. M'Clure, sticking out of the soil in 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 driftwood 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 subsequent elevation, by which these islands assumed their 

 present configuration, 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, f The transportation of immense 

 quantities of timber towards the North Pole, and its deposition 

 on submarine rocks, is by no means so remarkable a phenomenon 

 as the wide distribution of erratic blocks during the Glacial 

 Epoch over Northern Germany, Central Russia, and largo por- 

 tions 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 tliis wood has been drifted or pre- 

 served, we can have no difficulty of 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 would, when brought to ligiit by the opening of the 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, 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 



* See Scoresby on Drift-wood, " Northern Whale-fishery," p. 19, 1823. 

 t See Mr. H. H. Howorth's Memoir, reprinted above, p. 483. 



