354 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30 



of which we have heard so much. He informs me that, though any con- 

 ckisions now to be drawn from his observations must be provisional, it is 

 safe to consider that many specimens of the Eed Clay are so enth^ly analo- 

 gous to what the Gault must originally have been, that those specimens 

 might almost be looked upon as being as truly modern Gault as the 

 Glohigerina-oozQ is modern Chalk. In the Gault the grains of fine sand 

 are chiefly quartz derived from the decomposition of schistose rocks. But 

 the Pacific and Atlantic muds from great depths contain, besides quartz- 

 fragments, others of glassy felspar, pumice, and other volcanic products ; 

 and Mr. Sorby has not been able to detect any difference between the 

 main mass of the Gault and other rocks which are composed of very 

 minute granules like those derived from felspar or other minerals which, 

 in a similar manner, easily undergo complete chemical decomposition. 

 Independent, therefore, of the presence of different organic remains, and 

 of the modern volcanic products, there is little or no difference between 

 the Eed-Clay deposits and some of the earlier stratified rocks. 



The return of the Polar Exjpedition is too recent to allow of any 

 accurate estimate being formed of the value of the scientific facts which 

 it has accumulated. Captain Xares, in his official Eeport to the 

 Admiralty, bears warm testimony to the services (both as a collector and 

 an observer) of Captain Feilden, who was selected by your Council as 

 jN'aturalist to the Expedition ; and we have very good reason to believe that 

 his and Mr. Hart's contributions to Arctic Geology and Natural History 

 generally will prove to be the most important and extensive ever obtained 

 from the highest latitudes of the globe. 



Prom a communication \\ith which Captain Feilden has favoured me, it 

 appears that there are no signs of a cessation of animal or vegetable life up 

 to the furthest point reached by the Expedition : bii'ds and mammals 

 occiu' on the shores of the Polar basin in lat. 82° 45' ; and the sea it- 

 self abounds in Crustacea and MoUusca, which latter were collected in a 

 fresh state chiefly on the recently raised beaches. Of land mammals, 

 the Lemming and its enemy, the Ermine, were found on the North 

 Greenland coast, between the parallels of 82° and 83°, along with 

 twenty or thirty species of flowering plants, including the beautiful 

 Hesj^eris Pallasii, Saxifraga Jlagellaris, and Vesicaria arctica. The 

 absence of whales from Smith's Sound was a noteworthy fact : we may 

 assume that the great 2Iysticetus, which is almost extirpated in the 

 Spitsbergen seas, and which was traced up Baffin's Bay and to Prince 

 Eupert's Inlet, is now hemmed in by the polar ice of Bank's Straits and 

 McCHntock's Channel, and did not attempt to face the pack of Smith's 

 Sound. Birds, which abound in Baffin's Bay, were scarce in the Sound, 

 owing to the cold tides and wixnt of open ^-ater in the Polar basin ; 

 nevertheless the Knot, the Sanderling, and the long-tailed Skua Gull 

 were all observed to breed on the shores of that basin. 



