732 GLACIAL GEOLOGY OF AECTIC EUROPE, ETC. [Nov. 1 896. 



action of frost. I am making no reference to stratigraphical geology 

 in this paper, but it may be mentioned that some 5 miles inland 

 from Rogatcheva Bay I came across an outcrop of rock, apparently 

 very similar to a characteristic series of erratics in the glacio-marine 

 beds of Kolguev. It contains plant-remains, and is probably of 

 Jurassic age (see p. 744). It is quite within the range of reasonable 

 assumption that a portion of the Kolguev erratics may have been 

 floated from Novaya Zemlya. 



It is to Gooseland and the islands in Kostin Schar that I wish 

 particularly to draw attention. The latter are worn down and 

 abraded in contour, but as the rocks of which they are composed 

 almost always crop out at a high angle, and as they are very shaly 

 in character and readily decay and splinter, no marks of glaciation 

 are left on them. From Prof. Bonney's report they appear to be 

 sedimentary rocks of Palaeozoic or Archaean age. 



All of these islands which I was enabled to visit have deposits of 

 boulder-clay lying in their undulations and hollows. I met with 

 sections showing a depth of 20 feet ; the clay is of the same colour 

 as the rocks upon which it rests, and the included stones are angular 

 fragments of the same rock. I did not detect an erratic, or a 

 rounded stone, or an ice-scratched stone in any of this boulder-clay. 

 In many places it is full of shells of marine mollusca, Scuvicava 

 arctica predominating, though I found other species common enough. 

 In some localities one might gather these shells by the bushel, few 

 of them broken, never triturated, and in some cases the two valves 

 are in contact. 



This description holds good also of the part of Gooseland that 

 I visited, the abraded ridges, the deposits of boulder-clay in the 

 troughs, and the presence of shells of mollusca, all being character- 

 istic features. As I have expressed a very decided opinion that no 

 ice-sheet has ever extended over this part of Novaya Zemlya, I 

 may be asked to account for the presence of these widespread 

 deposits of boulder-clay, with the assemblage of the remains of 

 marine mollusca in them. I venture to urge the view that the 

 wearing down of Gooseland and the islands in Kostin Schar, and 

 the deposition of the boulder-clay, are entirely due to the action of 

 floating ice. 



I pass on to give some examples which I witnessed of the force 

 that floating ice can exercise. Last summer I was observing a 

 narrow pack of floating ice which for a few days hemmed in the 

 western side of the island of Kolguev. This ice-pack was moving 

 along the shore at the rate of 3 or 4 miles an hour. Some J mile 

 seaward from the beach on which I stood lay a shoal under water. 

 At this spot there was a constant turmoil and hubbub in the floating 

 ice. The unusually heavy pieces grounded on this shoal, and for 

 a short time checked the march-past of the ice-column. The delay, 

 however, was no long one : the pack accumulated behind, and by 

 its pressure forced the lagging blocks over the shoal. As a rule, 

 the accumulating pack dealt in a very summary way with the 

 obstructionists, by passing under them and turning them upside 



