Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea Part 22

The pipe-clay, when taken newly from the bed, is soft and plastic, has little grittiness, and when chewed for a little time, a somewhat unctuous but not unpleasant taste. When dried in the air it acquires the hardness of chalk, adheres to the tongue, and has the appearance of the whiter kinds of English pipe-clay, but is more meagre.

Section IV.

A little above the preceding:--

A precipitous bank of gravel 12 feet Lignite and clay, the beds concealed by debris 40 Friable sandstone 30 ---- Height of the cliff 82

Section V.

Ten miles above Bear Lake River, at the junction of a small torrent with the Mackenzie, there is a cliff about forty feet high, in which the strata have a dip of sixty degrees to the southward.

98 Bed, No. 1 Porcelain clay 2 yards 2 Potter's clay slightly bituminous 99 3 Thin-slaty lignite, with two seams of 2-1/2 100, 101 clay-iron stone, an inch thick 4 Pipe clay, (nine inches) 1/4 104 5 Porcelain clay 3 105 6 Bituminous clay 3 106 7 Lignite, with a conchoidal fracture 2 8 Pipe clay 1/4 107 9 Porcelain clay 3 10 Bituminous clay 3 110 11 Lignite, earthy paste, enclosing 2 fibrous fragments 12 Porcelain earth } 13 Bituminous clay } 9 14 Porcelain earth } ---------- 31 yards.

The three last beds it is probable, once inclosed seams of coal which have been consumed, but the quant.i.ty of debris prevented this from being ascertained satisfactorily during the hurried visit I paid to them.

[Sidenote: 108] Over these inclined beds there is a shelving and crumbling cliff of sand and clay covered by a sloping bank of vegetable earth. A layer of peat at the summit has a thin slaty structure, and presents altogether, except in colour and l.u.s.tre, a striking resemblance to the shaly lignite, forming bed No. 3 in the preceding Section.

104, 98. The substance composing beds Nos. 1 and 5, which I have denominated Porcelain clay, has a fine, granular texture, and the appearance of some varieties of chalk. It adheres slightly to the tongue, yields readily to the nail, is meagre, and soils the fingers slightly. There are many specks of coaly matter disseminated through it, and some minute scales of mica, and perhaps of quartz. When moistened with water, it becomes more friable, and is not plastic. It does not effervesce with acids.

Bed No. 9 is the same mineral that forms beds 1 and 5; but it has a grayer colour from the greater quant.i.ty of coaly particles, and its structure is slightly slaty.

The bituminous clay of bed No. 6, has a thick-slaty structure, a grayish-black colour, and a s.h.i.+ning resinous streak. It is sectile, but does not yield to the nail. Pieces of lignite occur imbedded in it, and it is traversed by fibrous ramifications of carbonaceous matter.

Specimens 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, are of substances altered by contact with beds of burning coal.

[31] See Page 50 of the Narrative.

[32] Noticed in page 267.

[33] List of specimens, collected by Captain Franklin, on the sea-coast, to the westward of the Mackenzie.

_From Mount Fitton in the Richardson Chain._

344 Grauwacke-slate in columnar concretions, detached from the rocky strata by an Esquimaux.

348 Grauwacke-slate, resembling the preceding, from the same place. Used by the Esquimaux as a whetstone.

345, 346 Globular b.a.l.l.s of dark, blackish-gray, splintery limestone, and of flinty-slate, traversed by minute veins of calc-spar. Picked up at the base of the mountain.

347 Worn pebbles of quartz, lydian stone, splintery limestone, and grauwacke, from the same spot.

349 Fine-grained, mountain-green clay-slate, approaching to potstone; quarried by the Esquimaux in the Cupola Mountain of the same chain, and used to form utensils.

350 Rock-crystal from the same chain of mountains.

_From the beach between Point Sabine and Point King._

351 Brown-coal, woody structure scarcely perceptible. There are beds of this coal in the earthy cliffs where the party was encamped on the 13th and 14th July near Point King.

352 Clay-iron stone, forming boulders in the channels of the rills, which cut the earthy banks containing coal.

353, 354 Pitch-coal, having a fibrous structure and a very beautiful fracture, presenting a congeries of circles. (This coal was recognised by Professor Buckland to be a tertiary pitch-coal, and is precisely similar to specimens brought from the upper branches of the Saskatchewan, by Mr. Drummond: see page 284.) The specimen was picked up from the gravelly beach at the mouth of the Babbage River.

355 Greenish-gray limestone, with a somewhat earthy granular aspect; containing sh.e.l.ls which Mr. Sowerby considers to be very like the _cyclas medius_ of the Suss.e.x weald-clay. Picked up at the same place with the preceding specimen.

Captain Franklin remarks, that "the Babbage flows between the mountains of the Richardson Chain, and that there were no solid strata nor any large boulders near its mouth. The gravel consisted of pebbles of red and white sandstone, slaty limestone, greenstone, and porphyry, much worn by attrition."

_From Mount Conybeare, in the Buckland Chain._

356 Greenish-gray grauwacke slate, (resembling No. 348,) with specks of effervescent carbonate of lime. The surfaces of the slates exhibit interspersed scales of mica. The specimens were broken from the summit of Mount Conybeare, at the western extreme of the Buckland Chain: lat.i.tude 69 degrees 27 minutes, longitude 139 degrees 53 minutes west.

358 Fine-grained grauwacke-slate in columnar concretions, from the same place with specimen 356.

357 Grauwacke-slate, in thick slaty columnar concretions, besprinkled with scales of mica. Taken from a bed about the middle of Mount Conybeare. The resemblance of this stone to that of Mount Fitton (No.

344) is very remarkable.

360 Similar rock to 358, with an adhering portion of a vein of crystallized quartz, and on one side a bit of bluish-gray slate. From the middle of Mount Conybeare.

359 Columnar concretion of a slaty rock, like 356, but more quartzose, breaking into rhomboidal fragments. From the middle of Mount Conybeare.

361, 362 Grauwacke-slate, with a thin adhering vein of carbonate of lime and numerous particles of disseminated mica. From the middle of Mount Conybeare.

363 Bluish-gray grauwacke-slate, resembling Nos. 348 and 344. From the Upper Terrace, at the base of Mount Conybeare.

364 Dark-bluish gray and very fine-grained grauwacke-slate, with a glimmering l.u.s.tre, traversed by a vein of quartz. From the same place.

365 A thick-slaty angular concretion of a very quartzose grauwacke-slate, (similar to Nos. 348 and 358,) decomposed on the surface and breaking into rhomboidal fragments. From the middle Terrace at the base of Mount Conybeare.

366 A somewhat rhomboidal portion of flinty-slate, apparently part of a bed. From the Lower Terrace of Mount Conybeare, which is composed of this rock. The terrace is ten miles distant from the sea-coast, and the intervening ground is swampy.

The whole series of specimens from Mount Conybeare, (Nos. 356 to 366,) appear to belong to transition rocks; and the continuity of the formation with that of Mount Fitton is rendered probable, both by the resemblance of the specimens and the geographical situation of the mountains.

Captain Franklin saw no rocks, _in situ_, on the coast to the westward of the Richardson Chain; but he gathered boulders of the following rocks from the bed of the Net-setting Rivulet, which flows from the British Chain of the Rocky Mountains, and falls into the Arctic Sea, between Sir P. Malcolm River and Backhouse River.

367 Greenstone; 368, yellowish-gray sandstone; 369, dark-coloured splintery-limestone; 370, 371, 372, dolomite; 373, quartzose sandstone, like the old red sandstone; 374, grauwacke-slate; 375, quartz and iron pyrites.

Boulders of the under-mentioned rocks were gathered on Flaxman Island.

378 Fine-grained, greenish clay-slate, obviously of primitive rock, abundant in the neighbourhood, and supposed to have been brought down by the rivulets which flow from the Romanzoff Chain. 379, quartz.

376 and 377 were from Foggy Island, and are rolled specimens of flinty-slate; one of them containing corallines.

[34] Page 268.

[35] 134. These specimens have a wood-brown colour internally, and appear to be composed of minute grains of quartz, variously coloured, white, yellowish-brown and black, cemented together by an earthy basis.

It is a hard and apparently durable stone, occurring in layers an inch thick, and having its seam-surfaces of a grayish-black colour, with little l.u.s.tre, as if from a thin coating of bituminous clay.

135, are specimens of a more compact, harder, and finer-grained quartzose sandstone, with less cement, and of a deeper bluish-gray colour.