1876.] 



Presidents Address. 



355 



Insects were found at the extreme point reached by Captain Teilden ; 

 and, of the lower orders, Echinodermata were very common. Amonoj 

 these is a beautiful Comatula, identical with one dredged up in 82° 6' 

 by Captain Buchan, in the ' Dorothea,' in 1818, and afterwards by 

 I'ranklin in the ' Trent,' in lat. 82° 26'. As the latter localities are on 

 the east coast of G-reenland, and this species had ]iot been found previously 

 in any part of the American Polar sea, another reason is suggested for 

 concluding that Greenland is an island, and that the coast traced to the 

 eastward by the sledge expedition of the 'Alert ' is truly its northern one. 



The geology of Smith's Sound is very instructive, Captain Eeilden 

 having succeeded in laying down its outline, at any rate, and connecting 

 its rocks with some of those of the Polar regions to the south. Gneiss, 

 sj^enite, and hornblende rocks extended from Cape Isabella, in lat. 78°, to 

 Hayes Sound, in lat. 79°, where they were overlain by marine beds of 

 Silurian conglomerates, full of fossils, dipping E. and W., and reaching 

 northward to Cape Collinson. On the Greenland coast, in Bessel's Bay 

 and Petermann Eord, the same rocks are found. On the opposite coast, in 

 Discovery Bay, these fossiliferous rocks, if they ever existed, must have 

 been denuded, and are replaced by azoic slates and limestones presuma- 

 bly answering to the Silurians of American geologists. This formation 

 was traced to lat. 82°, where an anticlinal ridge occurs, the northern 

 strata of which dip to the N.N.E., and are, in lat. 82° 44', overlain by Car- 

 boniferous limestones^ 



Miocene strata were discovered near Discovery Bay, in lat. 81° 44', 

 including a 20-foot seam of coal rich in fossil plants. Postpliocene 

 beds full of shells, and sometimes 400 feet thick, filled up the valleys, 

 and overlay hills 100 feet high ; these contained bones of the musk-ox and 

 seal, together with drift wood, all deposited as they might have been 

 under existing conditions. 



Drift pine wood abounds on the shores of the Polar Sea, no doubt 

 drifted from the Siberian rivers ; and birch wood occurred lq the Sound. 



Evidence of a recent change of climate was met A^ith in the num]:)er 

 of deserted Eskimo settlements, which were traced nearly as far north as 

 the parallel of 83°. One of the houses was roofed with large whales' ribs. 



I have now, Gentlemen, concluded my endeavour to bring under your 

 notice some of the principal labours of your Council during the past year, 

 together with their immediate and prospective results. I should have 

 liked, had time permitted, to direct your attention to a few of the more 

 interesting papers and experiments that have been brought before us at 

 our evening meetings, and to point out to you that in the consideration 

 and preparation of papers for publication a heavy burden is laid on your 

 Secretaries and that longsuffering body the Committee of Papers. It 

 would perhaps surprise you could you be made aware of the amount and 

 importance of the work connected with papers which is performed by 



