232 LAMPLUGH : SHELLY MORAINE OF THE SEFSTROM GLACIER. 
complete demonstration of it. The advancing glacier had acted 
like a great dredge ; in crossing the trough of the fiord, it had 
dragged the material of the sea-bottom up the slope and spread 
it out for investigation upon the land.i Moreover, it had done 
its dredging work so effectively that the majority of the shells 
had not been injured by their removal. Their state of preserva- 
tion was indeed astonishing, as was also their profusion. Evidently 
the neighbourhood sea at a moderate depth is full of life, though 
the winter frosts and the formation of ice-foot along the shore 
render the conditions intolerable to molluscan life between tide- 
marks, so that usually there were few shells to be seen on the 
foreshore except such as were derived from elevated marine 
beds of the raised-beach period. But on Cora Island the beach 
was crowded with shells, undoubtedlj^ derived from the moraine. 
Over every part of the moraine that I traversed, the shells 
were present, clustered thickly in some places and thinly scattered 
in others ; and fragments of LdtJiothamnion were even more 
]:)lentiful than the shells, sometimes occurring in twisted streaks 
that resembled in appearance the streaks of chalk -detritus so 
common in the Holderness boulder-clays. Bivalves greatly 
predominated, mainly species of Astarte, Mya, Pecten and Tellina ; 
but there was likewise a sprinkling of univalves, chiefly species 
of Natica and Buccinum. In many cases the epidermis was still 
fresh on the forms like Astarte which have this covering ; and a 
great many of the bivalves occurred with the shells closely united 
as in life, and in some cases with the shrivelled ligament still in 
position. The interior of the paired bivalves was usually filled 
with red clay like the matrix in which they were embedded ; in 
two or three instances, however, I found that the infilling material 
was more sandy and paler than the matrix, though the difference 
was not so marked as that which has been occasionally observed 
in the interior of shells from the Yorkshire boulder-clays. Isolated 
valves were common, and some of the shells were broken ; but 
perfect shells and paired valves predominated. 
I had no time for systematic collecting, and merely filled my 
pocket with shells that came in my way, therefore obtaining only 
the commoner forms. The richness of the fauna is shown by the 
1 [P.S. Sept. 1911.] Prof. G. A. J. Cole, in the paper cited on p 216, suggests that the material 
may have been transported from raised beaches on the western shore of Ekman Bay ; but 
the fresh condition of the shells, the medial position of the moraine in respect to the front 
of the glacier, and indeed all the circumstances, appeared to me to indicate that it was derived 
from the bottom of the fiord and not from the shores. 
