228 LAMPLUGH : SHELLY MORAINE OF THE SEFSTROM GLACIER. 
Fvrther description of the Moraine. 
The red clay of the moraine has been derived mainly from the 
disintegration of the red Devonian rocks — marls and sandstones — 
which underlie the bottom of the fiord and rise above sea-level 
to the north and east of Cora Island. The waters of Ekman 
Ba}^ are deeply tinged, especially in the neighbourhood of the 
glaciers, with red mud brought in by streams ; and this materia] 
must be deposited in quantity on the sea -bottom. Some of the 
clay of the moraine may have been derived directly from the solid 
rocks by glacial abrasion, but certainly the greater part has come 
from the muddy deposits of the fiord. So far as I saw, however, 
there was no sign of lamination or stratification in the mass ; if 
any such structure existed before transport, it had been obliterated. 
I have it in my notes that the colour of the clay seemed to me 
" a little redder than the Purple Clay of Yorkshire but not quite 
so red as the Hessle "* ; and that the proportion of boulders was 
" about the same as in Yorkshire clays, or a little more." The 
clay was rather loamy and crumbling where dry — not so hard as 
our Yorkshire boulder clays — but was tough and sticky where 
wet. It was laced here and there with streaks of grey-green 
colour, containing crushed shale, very like the streaks one sees in 
the ■ red band ' of our Holderness drift-sections ; and this seemed 
to imply the derivation of such portions from fresh unweathered 
rock. 
All the boulders that I saw were from the local formations, 
chiefly grey and purple sandstones, limestones, chert, conglomer- 
ate, etc. Some were striated ; others, about equal in number, 
had no striae ; and a few were angular. Many were thickly en- 
crusted w ith a sea -grow th of Lithotham nion , show ing that they 
had lain on the bottom of the fiord ; and I noticed limestone 
boulders with molluscan borings, like those we find occasionally 
in the Holderness boulder- clays. The boulders were distributed 
somewhat patchily. as in most boulder clays, being sometimes 
clustered and sometimes widely spaced. There were a few^ 
gravelly streaks and pockets in the clay, but I saw no regular 
stratified deposits of any kind, the scantiness of fluvio-glacial 
detritus striking me as remarkable and unexpected. 
Save for a stray and exceptional tuft of grass the w hole area of 
the moraine was absolutely bare ; its material was likewise ex- 
posed in section in the steep walls of the cauldrons, and in the 
