Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/370

Rh in the northern part of the American continent. This may be that species, or it may be a new one; which it was we have no means of determining. The Orthocerata were but fragments, and so badly water-worn that the species could not be identified.

"The specimens of corals were very perfect and beautiful, and unlike any figured by Professor Hall in the Palæontology of New York. The Heliolites and Heliopora belong to the Niagara group in New York, but in Canada they have been found in the Lower Silurian. For the identification of strata, corals are not always reliable. Whether these species are similar or identical with any in the Canadian collection, it was out of my power to determine. They are unlike any figured by Mr. I. W. Salter.

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"One of the Committee appointed to examine the mineral specimens brought from Frobisher Bay by Mr. Hall, reports that the specimens, though quite numerous, were mostly of the same general character. The rocks were nearly all mica schist. Some of the specimens were taken from boulders; some from the ruins of houses, and had the mortar still attached; and some were from the rock in its natural position. There was nothing peculiar in the rock, it presenting the usual variations in composition. The other specimens were an argillaceous limestone, determined by its fossils to be Lower Silurian; a single specimen of quartz, crystallized, and presenting, besides the usual six-sided termination, another pyramid whose angle was much more obtuse; magnetic iron, some of which was found in situ, and other specimens which were evidently boulders, and had undergone for some time the action of salt-water; a few pieces of iron pyrites, bituminous coal, and nodules of flint or jasper. ...

"[The part of this report omitted gives reasons for believing the coal and siliceous nodules to have been brought from England by Frobisher, who, it is well known, took out large supplies and many miners, expecting to mine and smelt ores. Some 'blooms' of iron which Mr. Hall found may have been the result of their operations with the magnetic iron.—]

"... This theory is supported by the tradition of the natives, who say that the coal was brought there by the foreigners, as well as by the entire absence of any indications of geological strata so high up in the series as the Carboniferous formation. The siliceous pebbles seem to have served as gravel for the mortar used in building the houses for carrying on the various objects for which the expedition was sent out. No trace of any mineral containing silver existed in the collections. The sands supposed by Mr. Hall to be those in which Frobisher found gold have not yet been assayed. A small bead detached from an ornament worn by the natives was found to be lead.

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