518 
DETRITUS IN THE BAYS OF THE WHITE SEA. 
Whether the salt-pits which occur to the west of Ninokotski are proofs of the 
comparative recent sojourn of the sea in these parts, or depend on springs which 
issue from subjacent Old Red or Devonian strata, seems doubtful. Some of them 
may, for all that we know, be formed like salt-pans from the present sea, as on 
parts of the British shores ; but at the station of Unskoi a salt spring unquestion- 
ably issues from a subjacent stratum, which we believe to be Devonian. Between 
this place and the western side of the promontory which constitutes the east coast 
of the bay of Onega, undulating hills, often argillaceous, are capped with northern 
blocks and sand, and a few slabs of hard red sandstone, as we particularly observed 
in the heights upon the left bank of the river Kianda. In fact, the whole of the 
great promontory which stands out northwards towards the White Sea, the southern 
side only of which we examined, is covered with blocks and erratic matter, and 
thus we were again in a detrital zone, which presented a striking contrast to the 
sandy and loamy surface between it and the Dwina. In certain ravines on the 
east coast of the bay of Onega we met with such great masses of subangular blocks 
of gneiss and granite, that we were almost disposed to think these rocks must be 
in situ ; the more so as we knew, that the little islets in the bay were composed of 
such. When the structure of these isles, or the chief of them, Ki-ostrof, was 
described (p. 17), we had not visited the coasts of Norway and Sweden ; and we 
must therefore now state, that, whether in structure or in outline, Ki-ostrof and 
its associated islets exactly resemble the “skars 1 ” of these countries, of which 
hereafter. 
This islet forms the southernmost of a group of granitic isles which extend 
northwards ; and on the largest of them, at the mouth of the bay, is built the 
Solavetski monastery. Ki-ostrof, as well as its adjacent islets, is an elongated 
narrow “ skar,” the shape of which conforms to that of the bay of Onega; its 
northernmost face being very much worn down and polished 2 , whilst its southern 
English navigator. Chancellor (anno 1551), discovered Muscovy via the White Sea, and there waited 
until he received an invitation from the Czar Ivan Vassilievitch to visit Moscow. 
1 This Swedish word is pronounced like the English word share. 
4 Though we did not visit the Isle of Dago, which lies between the Finnish and Swedish shores whence 
the granite blocks have been derived, and the low plateau of Courland on which they are lodged, we know 
from Professor Eichwald, who gave us specimens from the spot, that in some parts the surface of the 
Upper Silurian limestone in that island has been scratched, as if weighty, harrowing bodies had passed 
over it from north to south. It is, of course, impossible that any such permanent scratches can have 
been impressed on the incoherent rocks of Russia. 
