Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/403

Rh Mr. Clements Markham, who had accompanied the Expedition thus far on board the 'Alert.' It was no ordinary leave-taking, for to Mr. Markham's earnest advocacy of a renewal of Arctic enter- prise the despatch of the Expedition was in a great measure due. An Arctic traveller himself, having graduated in the school of the Franklin Search Expeditions twenty five years before, he added practical experience to his vast stores of knowledge, which were at all times available for the information and benefit of his companions. Our parting with one who sympathised so warmly in all our hopes and aspirations was severing the last link in the chain that connected us with home.

On July 17th we passed down the Waigatt Strait, through streams of bergs discharged from the Torsukatak ice-fiord. The scenery of the Waigatt is very fine ; on the Nugsuak side the trap- cliffs rise to a height of from 3000 to 4000 feet. The same formation forms the coast-line as far as Proven, in lat. 72°22' N., which we reached on the night of the 19th. This settlement is built on a small island composed of gneiss, its highest point reaching an elevation of about 600 feet. The surface of the island is strewed over with erratic blocks, chiefly metamorphic ; some of them are of enormous size, and are poised on very insecure foundations, many of them giving the idea that they would topple over with but little encouragement. On the extreme summit of the island are lying several masses of basalt, with the edges of the columns little worn by attrition ; in all probability these blocks were drifted to their present position by the agency of floating ice, in which case this portion of the Greenlandic coast must have experienced great elevation since the deposition of the Miocene traps and basalts. At an elevation of over 1000 feet on Arveprins Island, Mr. Markham and I observed the same deposition of basaltic erratics on its ice-worn slopes. We noticed a considerable falling off in the abundance of the flora at Proven in comparison with the Island of Disco; bird-life was very scant — a single Raven, many family parties of Snow Buntings, a few Wheatears with their newly-fledged young, and a Glaucous Gull, made up the list. The sea, however, was more prolific in life : a small dredge, let down in thirteen and a half fathoms, brought up many Mollusca, Star-fishes, and Crustaceans. By dipping buckets, we captured hundreds of Clio borealis and Limacina arctica; when the two species were placed in the