56 COL. H. W. FEILDEN ON KOLGUEV ISLAND. [Feb. 1 896, 



coast, there to be scratched and then carried out to sea, and 

 deposited on the floor of the ocean. It seems more reasonable to 

 suppose that this great aggregation of ice-scratched erratics came 

 from glaciers, but the difficulty we have to face is, how do ice-scratched 

 stones get from the glacier to the ice-raft? That ice-scratched 

 stones do find their way into the subaqueous mud-moraines of 

 recent glaciers I can testify, but that is a subject upon which I 

 must not enlarge in this paper. If we admit that the Kolguev 

 erratics came from glaciers, where do we suppose those glaciers 

 to have existed during the period when the Kolguev Beds were 

 deposited ? 



I should have brought away, had circumstances permitted, a larger 

 number of these erratics from the Kolguev Beds, but our landing 

 and embarcation had to be effected in great haste and in a row- 

 boat. I secured, however, several which I submitted to Prof. 

 Bonney, who has most kindly drawn up a valuable and exhaustive 

 report on the specimens, which appears as an Appendix to this 

 paper (p. 58). 



The Kolguev Beds in the vicinity of the Gobista River may be 

 divided into clays and sands, but their differences of composition 

 merge into one another. Not infrequently the clays pass into 

 horizons of a more sandy composition, although so insensibly that 

 it is difficult to determine exactly where the change takes place. 

 The cliffs are so homogeneous in character, and the passage of the 

 clay-stratum into sand is so gradual, that the alteration is evidenced 

 more by the change of colour in the sections than by an} T definite 

 lines of demarcation. It is evident that no break has occurred in 

 the continuous deposition of these sedimentary beds. In general 

 colour, the Gobista beds remind me of our English Gault. No- 

 where did I notice layers of gravel traversing the beds, and in this 

 respect those of Kolguev differ from the glacio-marine beds of 

 Grinnell Land and Smith's Sound. There the horizons of clay, sand, 

 and gravel are often distinctly defined. This arises from their 

 deposition close to land in shallow water. The Kolguev Beds were 

 evidently deposited in the sea, farther from shore than the Grinnell 

 Land beds, and every piece of rock larger than the constituent 

 particles of the beds themselves is, I am convinced, an ice-trans- 

 ported erratic. 



The fossils included in the Kolguev Beds (I am not referring to 

 those which have been transported as erratics, but to the fossils con- 

 temporaneous with the beds themselves) are all mollusca, and well- 

 known boreal forms, existing at the present time. Though in 

 various sections fragments of Saxicava arctica, My a, etc., appeared 

 to be dispersed from top to bottom, yet they were certainly rare, and 

 I obtained but few entire examples. Very likely I was unfortunate 

 in the localities that I investigated ; moreover, my stay on the 

 island was brief, and I had necessarily many other duties to occupy 

 my time besides searching for fossils. Still, I submit that these 

 molluscan remains, found in various localities and through the whole 



