COASTS VISITED BY THE AKCTIC EXPEDITION. 571 



the species in the Arctic collection more closely allied or equivalent 

 to those of Arctic America, or to the fauna of the western hemi- 

 sphere ? or can they be equally referred to that of the northern part 

 of the European continent, especially Norway and Sweden or the 

 Scandinavian peninsula, or to the British islands? Many species 

 are common to both areas, especially in the groups of the Coelen- 

 terata and Brachiopoda, the latter markedly in the Carboniferous 

 series. 



It cannot be doubted that an extensive Silurian fauna is pre- 

 sent from lat. 79° to lat. 82° N., illustrating the lower and upper 

 divisions, the latter largely, especially the Wenlock series. A few 

 Devonian Spiriferce occur in the collection, succeeded by a charac- 

 teristic series of Carboniferous-Limestone Mollusca (Cephalopoda, 

 Gasteropoda, Brachiopoda, and Polyzoa) — all other Palaeozoic rocks, 

 so far as we know, being absent, no Coal-measure or Permian species 

 occurring in the collection. 



Our knowledge of the distribution of life through the rocks of the 

 Arctic region and within the Polar circle, as well as our information 

 relative to the general geology, mineralogy, and petrology of the Polar 

 regions, has been largely added to by the collections made during the 

 present expedition. A more general series of fossil Invertebrata has 

 been collected, and a fine series of the rocks composing the Lauren- 

 tian, most of which have been obtained in situ, others from the drift, 

 or borne upon glaciers from higher regions, probably remote from the 

 coast, or from the talus which abounds under the cliifs constituting 

 so conspicuous a feature along the shores of Grinnell Land, Peter- 

 mann Piord, and Hall Land — in fact, on both sides of Robeson and 

 Kennedy Channels. A large number of slabs and masses of limestone 

 were also obtained from the last-mentioned sources ; these contain 

 organic remains, which plainly tell their age, but not their locality, 

 though I believe that nearly all, if not all, the specimens are derived 

 from localities both east and west, as well as north, depending upon 

 the direction of the flow of the land-ice or glaciers on which they 

 were carried, or possibly of the " ice-foot." 



Amekican Affinities. 



The presence in the collection of Maclurea magna, Receptaculites 

 Neptuni or occidentalis and a new species of this genus, Favosites goih- 

 landicus, Halysites catenulatus, Favistella, &c, all having a peculiar 

 facies and mineral aspect, differing in many respects from the known 

 European series, leads us to the belief that the fossil fauna of Grinnell 

 Land and the north-western shores of Greenland must, on the whole, 

 be correlated or affiliated with that of Arctic America ; and although, 

 as might be expected, many of the species, both of the Silurian and 

 Carboniferous groups, are common to both continents, and probably 

 derived from both areas during their life, nevertheless I believe the 

 mass of the fauna belongs to the western hemisphere. The Scotch 

 Silurian fauna has little or no affinity whatever with the Arctic 

 species, neither do the Carboniferous series of Scotland appear to 



