Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/941

 glacier-clay (or shall I call it upper laminated Boulder-clay ?) all the shells found are of species still living in the neighbouring sea, with the exception of two, Glycimeris siliqua, and Panopoea norvegica ; but as both of these are found in the Newfoundland sea, we may expect them yet to be shown to be living in Davis Strait1. I have seen this "fossiliferous clay " up to the height of more than 500 feet above the sea, on the banks overlooking glaciers. At the Illartlek glacier, in 69° 27' N. lat., this glacier-clay, deposited on the bottom of the sea by some former glacier, now formed a moraine ; and on the surface of the ice I picked up several species of shells which had got washed out by the streams crossing over the glacier face. This Illartlek glacier does not reach the sea ; but supposing (as is doubtless the case elsewhere) that this clay had fallen on a glacier giving off icebergs, then the shells deposited in the old sea-bottom would be again carried out to sea, and a second time transferred to the bottom of Davis Strait ! I found this clay everywhere along the coast and in Leer Bay, south-west of Claushavn ; in knots of this clay are found impressions of the Angmaksaett (Mallotus arcticus, 0. Fabr.), a fish still quite abundant in Davis Strait 2. However, though this glacier- clay was found everywhere along the coast, yet it should be noticed that this was chiefly when glaciers had been in fjords, &c, and that often for long distances it would be sparingly found only in valleys or depressions.

Other evidences of the rise of the Greenland coast are furnished by ruins of houses being found high above the water, in places where no Greenlander would ever think of building them now. On Hunde (Dog) Island, in the district of Egedesminde, there are said to be two such houses, and two little lakes with marine shells naturalized in them, and remains offish-bones, &c, on the shores. I only heard this when it was too late, so that to my regret I had to leave the country without paying a visit to this remarkable locality.

2. Fall. — This has been long known ; but it is only within the last thirty years that special attention has been drawn to the subject, chiefly by Dr. Pingel 3, who passed some time in Greenland. The facts are tolerably well known, how houses are found jammed in by ice in places where they never would have been built by the natives, as Proven, and so on. It may, however, be as well to recapitulate these proofs.

Between 1777 and 1779 Arctander noticed that in Igalliko Fjord (lat. 60° 43' N.) a small rocky island, " about a gun-shot from the shore," was entirely submerged at spring-tides ; yet on it were the walls of a house (belonging to the old Norsemen) 52 feet in length, 30 in breadth, 5 in thickness, and 6 high. Fifty years

1 Morch in Tillaeg no. 7 til Rink's ' Gronland,' Bind 2, S. 143.

2 " In general, I may say," remarks Agassiz, when speaking of the closeness with which Tertiary fishes agreed with recent ones, " that I have not yet found a single species which was perfectly identical with any marine existing fish, except the little species (Mallotus), which is found in nodules of clay, of unknown age, in Greenland." I am convinced that the age I have given is correct.

3 Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. ii. p. 208.