48 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



power in a vertical direction, a lofty and continuous mountain wail 

 145 geographical miles in length, separating diif event quarters of the 

 globe, and only passable in a few places ; in the latter heaving and 

 eruptive forces were most effective, and the masses driven directly 

 from the volcanic focus to the surface were principally elevated and 

 spread out in horizontal extent. From this difference is derived 

 the greater variety and more favourable development of the natural 

 features of the Lower Caucasus, and with this its ethnographical im- 

 portance is most inseparably connected. 



[W. J. H.] 



Bear Island, geognostically described from the Observations of 

 B. M. Keilhau, with Remarks on the Spirifer Keilhavii 

 and its relation to similar forms. By Leopold von Buch. — 

 Die Baren-Insel nach B. M. Keilhau geognostisch beschrieben 

 von Leopold von Buch ; und, TJeber Spirifer Keilhavii, 

 iiber dessen Fundort und Verh'dltniss zu ahnlichen Formen. 



[Memoir read to the Berlin Academy of Sciences, 14th May 1846.] 



Far in the north of Europe, half-way between Norway and Spitz- 

 bergen, in 74° 30' of latitude, lies a small island, scarcely ten miles in 

 circumference *, and almost constantly concealed in clouds or hid by 

 the waves of the Arctic Sea. The well-known navigator Barentz dis- 

 covered it during his third journey to the North on the 9th June 

 1596, and named it Bear Island, from a great bear killed upon it^ 

 The number of walruses that then surrounded the island like a wall, 

 induced a rich merchant in London, Sir Francis Cherrie, to send 

 Mr. Stephen Bennet, to kill them and extract the oil from their 

 bodies. Bennet reached the island, with which he was already ac- 

 quainted, on the 8th July 1604, and now gave it the name Cherrie 

 Island after his patron, which it still retains in English charts and 

 books, though Bear Island is used by other nations, and seems to be 

 more familiar even to the EngUsh. The profits from the walruses 

 caused the voyage to be repeated for five or six years. In 1 608 nearly a 

 thousand walruses were killed in seven hours, and yielded twenty-seven 

 tons of oil. Yet these undertakings were accompanied with much 

 danger. The island has few attractions for the seaman. The shore 

 all round rises precipitously to about 1 20 feet of elevation : the waves 

 break with much violence on this shore, and in no part of the whole 

 circuit is the smallest bay to be found, where a ship can obtain pro- 

 tection from wind and waves. They cannot therefore come close to 

 the island, and the boats must either be immediately drawn up on 

 land or return to the ship. The men put on shore hasten to com- 

 plete their task in a few hours, yet it often happens that the ships 

 cannot keep their place on account of the violence of the wind, and the 

 men must be left to their fate for months, and even for the whole 



* According to Scoresby, it is in 20° E. longitude, 130 miles S.S.E. of the most 

 southern point of Spitzbergen, and is about ten miles long. — Trans. 



