File:The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London (12734070793).jpg

454 J. F. CAMPBELL ON POLAK GLACIATION ETC.
(5) The Polar Basin. According to Mr. Skanke, English and
Russian consular agent at Vardo, which port is frequented by Sea-
horsemen and Whalers, " Parry Island"* is the most northern in
Spitzbergen, and is made of gneiss. He gave me a specimen. The
most northern island reached in Novaya Zemlia is in long. 66° E.,
and about 77° N. lat. Consul Skanke gave me a specimen, brought
thence by Captain Mack, which contains a large coral. Bear Island,
near lat. 75° and north of Norway, is rich in fossils which are taken
to indicate a warm climate. Judging by form and information I
concluded that some hills and islands, about the mouth of Kolafjord,
and at the entrance to the White Sea, are patches and outliers of
stratified, unaltered, undisturbed beds, resting unconformably upon
far older, greatly inclined, disturbed, crystalline, altered beds, which
have been " denuded " and ground into the shape of Russian Lap-
land. I find, on referring to the geological map of Europe, that my
inference was correct, so far as the nature of these rocks is concerned.
At Yeredick the rock is gneiss, the dip nearly vertical, the strike
N.W. S.E., the direction of glaciation N. and S., magnetic. In
neighbouring hills I saw faults which I take to be postglacial. A
smart earthquake was felt near Kola in February 1873. At other
places on the coast the rocks are gneiss, with veins of pink granite,
like rocks which I have seen in the Hebrides and in Labrador.
Generally the coast of Russian Lapland is made of old, hard, con-
torted, fractured rocks ground into curves. On the east side of the
White-Sea straits the beds are nearly flat, and seem to be little
altered. Limestone is there burned, and it is taken to Archangel f.
(6) Rise of Land. I spent five days on Vardo Island, which is
in the Polar basin. I found on the sea-beach subangular and
rounded stones. I found bits of metamorphic slate, broken from
overhanging beds of rock, in the bay. These dip at an angle of 45°
and strike N. S. Bays and hollows and ridges are on the strike

but
deep " Gjas " cross at right angles. The general form of the island
is that of glaciation. Up to about 30 feet is the " Storm beach" with
larger and more angular stones on it, cast up in a ridge which sweeps
in a crescent round the bay. Up to about 60 feet the raised beach is a
repetition of the actual beach, but grass-grown. On it are large
round blocks of granite. No granite is near in situ. The highest
about three miles wide. Photographs were taken there by Mr. Bradford, which
which were shown at the Meeting. No moraines are on the surface

but under
the ice at the side of this glacier are large boulders, and fine debris in contact
with rounded rocks. All glaciers move at slow rates, varying with circum-
stances. A cubic foot of this ice must weigh about 55 lb. Therefore the
pressure on the bed of this glacier is nearly twenty tons per square foot. If a
train wears wheels and rails, and a carriage its drag and the road — if stones and
sand rolled by rivers and the sea wear rocks, it seems evident that stones and
sand must be crushed and ground, and must crush, break, and wear rocks under
the great pressure of moving glaciers. Practically, all glacier -rivers are thick
with debris worn from rocks. As glaciers wear rocks, then icebergs driven by
currents must also do the same, under water, when they touch the bottom.

The Parry Islands of maps are to the north of America.
t Since my return I have read Murchison's ' Russia,' vol. i. 1845. The rocks
referred to are marked