552 BELCHER, GEOLOGY OF PAREY ISLANDS, ETC. 



(about 114 feet thick) covering the "friable disintegrating sand- 

 stone," which forms the base of the island. Tlie strata have a 

 westerly dip of 7°. 



[At page 379, vol. ii., J. W. Salter, Esq., F.G.S., states that 

 the Carboniferous Productus Cora, Spirifer Kielhavii, &c., were 

 found on the top of Exmouth Island (in the limestone), and that 

 " close upon this again " lay the Ichthyosaurian bones.] 



The hasty examination given under the circumstances led to the 

 conjecture that fossils [Lias ?] were only to be found in the 'area 

 marked out by Exmouth, Table, Ekins, and Princess-Royal Islands, 

 and that portion of the mainland lying between the latter and 

 Cape Briggs ; but this coast, at Depot Point and P.-Royal I., con- 

 sists of Carboniferous Limestone {above, pp. 548, 551). 



3. North Cornv^all, &c. 



Vol i. p. 111. The ravines are deeply channelled out of a very 

 friable sand-stone, and in the bottom were noticed large masses of 

 clay-iron-stone, septaria, and nodules of iron-pyrites. Coal was 

 also found, but disseminated, and impossible to trace in situ* 



Bivalves, apparently of recent origin, and having the cartilage- 

 hinge perfect, were abundant Birds may have 



placed these shells ; but with . . . this climate, prevailing ice, 

 and the scarcity of animal life especially, this is scarcely credible 

 . . . . This friable sandstone and sand, interspersed on the 

 surface with boulders of granite, and almost garnet masses, con- 

 stitutes the principal features of the land on West Cornwall. 



While constructing a cairn at Glacier Bluff in N.-E. Grinnell 

 Land, Northumberland Sound (vol. i. p. 125,) gold was discovered 

 in '" a heavy piece of quartz."! 



Vol. i. pp. 316-320. At Buckingham Island (Victoria Archi- 

 pelago), spits of gravel radiating from the emljouchure of an old 

 river-valley, now dry, are mentioned, and other evidence of former 

 rivers and lakes in Grinnell Land and North Devon, and of sub- 

 mergence of mountain-ranges, when " Whales and other objects 

 " were deposited on elevations of 500 feet and upwards." Ter- 

 races, mud-flats, gravel-ridges, pebbles of chalcedony, and carcases 

 and bones of Whales at 80 or 500 feet elevation are also alluded 

 to ; and the invariable dip of the strata at about 5° to northward 

 is noticed. 



In some cases vertebras and skulls of Whales have been set up 

 as land-marks. Such are not to be mistaken for drifted remains. 



(Dr. Walker of the " Fox " Expedition mentions a Whale's skele- 

 ton found at an elevation of 80 feet.) 



At Mount Parker (Belcher, vol i., p. 261), the " head and pro- 

 " bably the entire skeleton of a Whale," were discovered at a 

 height of 500 feet above the sea level. 



At Cape Disraeli (i. p. 266) an embedded Whale was found. 



* Loose coal was found also to the south in Grinnell Land, and some bitu- 

 minous shale further to the south-west (pages 40 and 97). 



t Gold was also brought home by Dr. Rae from the Arctic Regions. 



