304 REV. J. F. BLAKE ON A REMARKABLE INLIER | May 1902, 
are found in the zone of Cardioceras alternans ; but their formation commenced 
in the period of the Kimeridgian zone of Hoplites eudoxus, and continued through 
that of Perisphinctes Pallasi into the beds with Jsastrea oblonga. 
(12) The fossil contents of the breccia-beds themselves are all heterochthonous, 
and the agent which brought them to their final resting-place had the power to 
tear off massive corals from their place of growth, to collect large shells into 
heaps, and to grind to powder the majority of the calcareous organisins, which 
lay on the sea-bottom in its course. 
(13) he deposition of these materials had but little effect on the strata then 
forming at the place of deposit, except in the event of jamming against a rock 
projecting from the sea-bottom, when the uppermost deposit then exposed might 
be puckered up against the projecting rock. The puckering seen here, in such a 
case, indicates a pressure from the north or north-east. 
V. Comparison oF THE Breccra-Brps with THE WoRK OF AN 
Icr-Foor. 
We have now to enquire whether there is any agency at present 
known which may be expected to produce such results, and in what 
way that agency may have acted. 
The final paragraph of Prof. Judd’s paper reads as follows :—_ 
‘Here then we pause, in the expectation that future researches in the 
physical geography of some, as yet, little-studied region may demonstrate the 
existence, in the same combination, of those conditions which we have shown 
must have been present during the deposition of the wonderful brecciated beds 
of the Ord” Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxix (1873) p. 195. 
This expectation we are now, | hope, in a position to fulfil, The 
‘little-studied region ’ is that of Smith’s Sound in lat. 79° N., and 
the combination of necessary conditions is found in the ice-foot. 
On referring to Jukes & Geikie’s ‘ Manual of Geology’ published 
in 1872, we find no mention of the ice-foot and its phenomena, 
although the rapidity of rock-disintegration in the Arctic regions, as 
seen by Dr. Kane in Spitsbergen, is pointed out. In 1874, however, 
the British expedition to the West Coast of Greenland and Smith 
Sound commenced their explorations; and to the account which 
was afterwards published by Sir George Nares there was added an 
Appendix by Col. Feilden & Mr. De Rance, in which a very graphic 
description of the ice-foot is given with all the gusto of novelty: 
this was afterwards more fully elaborated in the Quart, Journ. Geol. 
Soc. vol. xxxiv (1878). We arethus able to compare the phenomena 
of an ice-fcot with those of the breccia-beds of Sutherland, step by 
step, and trace in detail their agreement or divergence. 
The definition of an ice-foot there given is as follows :— 
‘The ice-foot is built up, not so much by the act of the freezing of sea-water 
im contact with the coast, as by the accumulation of the autumn snowfall, 
which, drifting to the beach, is met by the sea-water at a temperature below the 
freezing- point. of fresh water and instantaneously is converted into ice. See 
‘ Voyage to the Polar Sea’ 5rd ed. (1878) App. pp. 340-41. : 
The conditions for its production, therefore, differ only in matters 
of intensity from those prevalent even now—-where it is not un- 
common in early spring to find snow-drifts by the shore, which 
