ARCTIC VOYAGES. 
73 
similar to their present directions during the geological drift 'period of 
this dreary region. 
This statement, we think, is rendered probable by the fact that the re¬ 
markable deposits of drift timber in the Polar Seas, to which we allude, 
are confined, so far as we now know, to the islands of New Siberia, off 
the coast of Asia, and to the western portions of Banks’ Land and Prince 
Patrick’s Island in the American Polar islands. 
We shall give Dr. Armstrong’s account of this remarkable pheno¬ 
menon on the north-western coast of Banks’ Land, although we cannot 
coincide in his inference that the forests which produced the timber 
once grew in Banks’ Land. Indeed, on the same principle, we might 
be forced to admit that the specimen of Cyprina islandica, brought by 
Captain M‘Clure from the summit of Coxcomb Bange, Banks’ Land 
(500 feet high), might once have lived and flourished among the pine- 
trees of Dr. Armstrong’s forest, fulfilling the words of the poet:— 
“ Piscium et summgt genus hsesit ulmo, 
Nota quae sedes fuerat columbis: 
Et superjecto pavidae natarunt 
iEquore damse.” 
“ We at once resolved to visit the spot, and in the evening I accompanied Captain 
M l Clure and a small party in the third whale-boat along the shore towards the place. 
I feel my inability to describe or convey a truthful idea of the bleakness, wildness, or 
desolate grandeur that met the eye on landing upon the part of the coast which led us to 
the desired locality. From the beach, a narrow vale extended tortuously into the inte¬ 
rior, through a series of hills, rising range after range from 600 to 700 feet in elevation, 
unmarked by the slightest trace of vegetation. Their abrupt, nearly precipitous escarp¬ 
ments, separated from each other by deep and tortuous gorges, presented nothing to the 
view but sand and shingle; affording a picture of wild desolation and solitary grandeur, 
apparently matchless, and to be seen only in the distant regions of the Pole. On ascend¬ 
ing one of these hills, about a quarter of a mile from the beach, on its side, about 300 
feet high from the sea-level, we discovered the wood of which we were in search. The 
ends of trunks and branches of trees were seen protruding thi’ough the rich loamy soil in 
which they were embedded. On excavating to some extent, we found the entire hill a 
ligneous formation, being composed of the trunks and branches of trees ; some of them 
dark and softened, in a state of semi-carbonization. Others were quite fresh, the 
woody structure perfect, but hard and dense. In a few situations, the wood, from 
its flatness and the pressure to which it had for ages been exposed, presented a la¬ 
minated structure, with traces of coal. The trunk of one tree, the end of which pro¬ 
truded, was 26 inches in diameter by 16 inches; that of another, a portion of which 
was brought on board, was 7 feet in length, and 3 feet in circumference ; and dense in 
structure, although pronounced then to be pine.* Other pieces, although still pre¬ 
serving the woody structure, had a specific gravity exceeding that of water, in which 
they readily sunk, from their having undergone an incipient stage of impregnation with 
some of the earthy products of the soil. Numerous pine cones and a few acorns were 
* “A section of this piece of wood is to be seen in the Museum of the Koval Dublin 
Society, Dublin. To the obliging kindness of its able Director (Dr. Carte) I am in¬ 
debted for a knowledge of this fact; who has also kindly informed me, that he submitted 
it to the examination of Drs. Steele and Joseph Hooker, both of whom pronounced it to be 
coniferous wood. The latter thought it of the white pine species; and one of the semi- 
fossilized cones has been pronounced by Dr. Harvey, Professor of Botany, Trinity Col¬ 
lege, Dublin, to be similar to the present Spruce of North America,” 
VOL. V..—REV. 
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