No. I. HILLOCK POINT, Melville Island (Lat 76° N.; Long. 111° 45' W.).
No. II. BATHURST ISLAND, North Coast, Cape Lady Franklin (?) (Lat. 76° 40' N.; Long. 98° 45' W.).
[34]No. III. BALLAST BEACH, Baring Island (Lat. 74° 30' N.; Long. 121° W.).
  1. Wood fossilized by brown hematite; structure quite distinct.
  2. Cone of the spruce fir, fossilized by brown hematite.
No. IV. PRINCESS ROYAL ISLANDS, Prince of Wales' Strait, Baring Island (Lat. 72° 45' N.; Long. 117° 30' W.).
  1. Nodules of clay ironstone, converted partially into brown hematite.
  2. Native copper in large masses, procured from the Esquimaux in Prince of Wales' Strait.
  3. Brown hematite, pisolitic.
  4. Greyish yellow sandstone, same as Cape Hamilton and Byam Martin's Island.
  5. Terebratula aspera (Schlotheim). Journ. R. D. S., Vol. I. Pl. IX. Fig. 4.

This interesting brachiopod was found in the limestone by Captain M'Clure, at the Princess Royal Islands, in the Prince of Wales' Strait, between Baring Island and Prince Albert Land. I have no hesitation in pronouncing it to be identical with Schlotheim's fossil, which is found in the greatest abundance at Gerolstein, in the Eifel. Banks Land, or Baring Island, is composed of sandstone, similar to that at Byam Martin's Island, and at the Bay of Mercy. This sandstone contains beds of coal, apparently the continuation of the well-known coal-beds of Melville Island. It is a remarkable fact, that these carboniferous sandstones underlie beds of undoubtedly the carboniferous limestone type, and that at Byam Martin's Island, where fossils are found in this sandstone, they are allied to Atrypa fallax and other forms characteristic of the lower sandstones of the carboniferous epoch. It is, therefore, highly probable that the coal-beds of Melville Island are very low down in the series, and do not correspond in geological position with the coal-beds of Europe, which rest on the summit of the carboniferous beds. It is interesting to find at Princess Royal Island, where, from the general strike of the beds, we should expect to find the Silurian limestone underlying the coal-bearing sandstones, that this limestone does occur, and contains a fossil, T. aspera, eminently characteristic of the Eifelian beds of Germany, which form, in that country, the Upper Silurian Strata.