i8 
a. gibb Maitland, f.g.s. : 
conspicuous in the Kara Sea, and extend for many miles: 
to the north and south. They consist of thick beds' of clay 
and sand often crowded with erratics, many being of im- 
mense size and often beautifully polished, grooved and 
scratched. In the neighbourhood of Belusha Bay are 
vast stretches of these beds at an elevation of about 500 feet 
above the present level of tl e sea ; they contain shells 
and foraminifera of the same species as now abound in the 
neighbouring waters, thus demonstrating their marine 
origin. On the summits of some of the surrounding moun- 
tains 800 feet in height are erratic boulders of granite 
and foreign rocks, whose presence is ascribed by Col. Fielden 
to floating ice. 
It may in this connection be of interest to point out 
that Sir Jas. Ross noticed a somewhat analogous condition 
of affairs in the Antarctic, when off Victoria Land. This 
navigator gave an account of the capsizing of an iceberg, 
which presented a fresh surface found to be covered with 
large quantities of earth and stones, these latter being 
deposited on the sea floor by the melting of the berg. H.M.S. 
Challenger, in lat. 65° 42' S. and long. 79 0 3' E., dredged 
from a depth of 1,675 fathoms various kinds of rocks and 
pebbles from a bluish calcareous mud. Very many of the 
rocks and pebbles showed distinct glacial striae. Boulder- 
bearing clays and sands of this kind, which ow'e their origin 
to the distribution of continental debris carried seawards 
by floating ice, have been proved by the Challenger ex- 
pedition to be of very great extent in the Antarctic, reaching 
equatorwards as far as lat. 46° or 47 0 South. 
These observations are of extreme interest as showing 
that in the circumpolar regions of both hemispheres boulder- 
bearing clay, mud and sand is at the present time being 
laid down over a very large area of the ocean floor, and 
which, if consolidated, would produce beds in every way 
identical with the Lyons Glacial Conglomerate. 
The pebbles and boulders of the Lyons conglomerate 
as developed in the vicinity of the Wyndham and Arthur 
Rivers have a very large proportion of smooth and polished 
faces. The flats in the neighbourhood are covered with 
boulders and blocks of crystalline rocks derived from the 
weathering in situ of the conglomerate, which in this locality 
has a dip of about three degrees to the south-w r est. 
In the bed of the Wyndham River, beds of flaggy 
sandy limestone may be observed passing beneath the 
boulder bed. Associated with the boulder bed are the 
following fossils ■—Hexagonella dendroidea, Hudleston ; 
Pleurophyllum Australe, Hinde ; fragments of Crinoid stems 
and Polyzoa ; Spirifera Musakheylensis, Davidson ; Spiri- 
