Notes on Fossil Plants discovered in Grinnell Land by Captain H. W. Feilden, Naturalist of the English North-Polar Expedition

Abstract

I n the vicinity of Discovery Harbour, where H.M.S. ‘Discovery’ wintered during 1875–76, a thick bed of lignite was found. The locality referred to is on the western shore of Robeson Channel, in about latitude 81° 45′ N., and longitude 64° 45′ W., north-west of Cape Murchison; the exact position is designated Watercourse Ravine in the Charts of the English Expedition. This coal-bed has a thickness of from 25 to 30 feet, and lies in a depression, the foundation of which consists of the unconformably stratified azoic schists which constitute the chief mass of Grinnell Land. On the coal-bed rest immediately black shales and sandstones. The black, fine-grained shales, which very closely resemble the Taxodium -shale of Cape Staratschin on the Ice-fiord of Spitzbergen, contain many remains of plants, which were collected by Captain Feilden and handed over to me for examination. The coal-seam and the superincumbent beds of shale and sandstone dip to the east under the sea of Robeson Channel at an angle of about 10°. These beds are cut through by a stream which has formed a deep gully, wherein the strata are laid bare ; whilst at different points on the upper strata rest beds of fine mud and glacial drift, which contain well-preserved shells of marine Mollusca ( Saxicava rugosa, Astarte borealis, &c. ) now found in the neighbouring sea. This glacial marine deposit is met with up to a height of 1000 feet above the present sea-level, and shows that the land was sunk beneath the surface of