ABCTIC VOYAGES. 
D43 
Captain M'Clintock’s collection, preserved in tlie Museum of the 
Royal Dublin Society, furnished six additional new 'forms; while Sir 
Edward Belcher has contributed none. 
Dr. Sutherland’s collection appears to have contained no Carboni¬ 
ferous forms; Sir Edward Belcher has contributed nine species, and 
M‘Clintock six species. 
Of the Carboniferous forms referrible to known European and Ame¬ 
rican forms the following may be quoted :— Productus Cora, P. semire- 
ticulatus, P. sulcatus, Spirifer Keilhavii , Cyathophyllum helianthoides , 
and Fcwosites Gothlandica. 
Many of the Silurian and Carboniferous forms occur together, appa¬ 
rently in situ , a fact respecting which the following comments are added 
to M‘Clintock’s Journal by Professor Haughton :— 
“A question of very considerable geological interest is raised by the occurrence toge¬ 
ther of corals, in the same locality, of Silurian and Carboniferous forms. 
“ I entertain no doubt of their being in situ, and occurring in the same beds, for the 
following reasons:— 
“ 1st. The Syringopores of Griffith’s Island were found at an elevation of 400 feet 
above the sea, and, therefore, could not be brought by drifting ice. 
“ 2nd. The specimens were apparently of the same texture and composition as the 
native rock, whenever the latter was visible from under the snow. 
“ 3rd. I do not believe in the lapse of a long interval of time between the Silurian 
and Carboniferous deposits,—in fact, in a Devonian period. 
“ 4th. The same blending of corals has been found in Ireland, the Bas Boulonnais, 
and in Devonshire, where Silurian and Carboniferous forms are of common occurrence in 
the same localities. 
“ 5th. In the Carboniferous beds proper of Melville Island, and Bathurst Island, there 
were not found, so far as I am aware, any corals of the same character as those at 
Griffith’s Island, Cornwallis Island, and Beechey Island, which could give a supply to 
be drifted to the latter localities in a Pleistocene sea. It is plain, from the height at 
which the corals were found, that, if they were brought to their present localities by ice, 
it must have been during the period known as Post-tertiary, as the present conditions of 
drift-ice in Barrow’s Straits do not permit us to suppose them to have been placed where 
we now find them by existing causes.” 
The principal geological result of Sir Edward Belcher and Captain 
M‘Clintock’s collection is the undoubted establishment of the existence 
of a Liassic Basin in latitude 77° hi., and probably extending from Ex¬ 
mouth Island to Prince Patrick’s Island, a distance of 300 miles. At 
the first island some bones of a species of Ichthyosaurus were found in 
loose gravel by Sir Edward Belcher, and described (Plate XXXI.) by 
Professor Owen. The following account of their discovery is given by 
Sir Edward Belcher:— 
“ The position in which those remains were found is situated in latitude 77° 16' N., 
and longitude 96° W., at 570 ft. above the level of the sea. The base of the island is a 
friable, disintegrating sandstone, which has been worn away on all sides, leaving the 
concentric elevation equal to one-third of its original diameter, rising abruptly from its 
base, so much so as to be accessible only on its western end. 
“ The summit is capped by a limestone formation of about one-fifth of the entire 
height, say 114 ft., resting on the sandstone, and leaving a dip at its western end of seven 
degrees.” 
