ROCK SPECIMENS. 
cciv 
In another variety of sandstone, of a grey colour, found in the neighbour- 
hood of Table-hill, I observed some disk-shaped bodies of about half an inch 
in diameter, exhibiting concentric circles, with crenulated rays proceeding 
from the centre, which is in the form of a small knob : they are, no doubt, 
trochi or joints of the stem of an Encrinus ; but this is all that can be said 
of them. 
The two specimens of sandstone containing the above-mentioned secondary 
fossils, are pretty similar in appearance to those others brought from Melville 
island, which abound with the vegetable remains characteristic of the coal 
sandstone. These are most of them merely impressions and filmy carbo- 
naceous remnants of leaves (or fronds with ovate-lanceolate leaflets,) and 
stems, which by their regularly placed oval marks, indicate that the proto- 
types belonged to the arborescent ferns which we observe in such great 
abundance in the coal sandstone of more southern latitudes ; a proof that 
the inhospitable hyperborean region where they occur, at one time displayed 
the noble scene of a luxuriant and stately vegetation. There is also among 
the specimens of sandstone from the same place, one bearing the impression 
of a thin, longitudinally-striated stem, not unlike that of some reed. 
The coal itself is of a more or less slaty structure, and approaches, in some 
specimens, to the nature of brown coal ; its colour is of a brownish black : it 
is easily cleft, and the planes of separation, which are without lustre, exhibit 
here and there black shining spots, and lines apparently of a bituminous 
nature. It emits no unpleasant smell when burning, and leaves copious 
greyish-white ashes. This coal is not the same with that of Disco Island, 
which contains the amber ; it differs from it both in colour and structure. 
There is a piece of fine pitch coal or jet among the objects picked up in the 
neighbourhood of Cape Hearne. 
Part of the specimens of argillaceous and brown ironstone, found in 
Melville Island, evidently belong to the same formation as the sandstone so 
abundant in these parts, and are alike concomitants of the coal. They 
consist chiefly of rounded pieces, and likewise of geodes : the former appear 
