Whenever the packet halted over these banks during our coasting trip we demonstrated their fertility by casting a line or two over the bulwark. No bait was required, merely a double hook with a flat shank attached to a heavy leaden plummet. The line was sunk till the lead touched the bottom, a few jerks were given, and then a tug was felt: the line was hauled in with a cod-fish or hallibut hooked, not inside the mouth, but externally by the gill-plates, the back, the tail, or otherwise. The mere jerking of a hook near the bottom was sufficient to bring it in contact with some of the population. There is a very prolific bank lying between the North Cape and Nordkyn, where the Porsanger and Laxe fjords unite their openings. Here we were able, with only three lines, to cover the fore-deck of the packet with struggling victims in the course of short halts of fifteen to thirty minutes. Not having any sounding apparatus by which to fairly test the nature of the sea-bottom in these places, I cannot offer any direct proof that it was composed of till. By dropping the lead I could _feel_ it sufficiently to be certain that it was not rock in any case, but a soft deposit, and the marks upon the bottom of the lead, so far as they went, afforded evidence in favor of its clayey character. A further investigation of this would be very interesting. But the most striking—I may say astounding—evidence of the fertility of these banks, one which appeals most powerfully to the senses, is the marvelous colony of sea-birds at Sverholtklubben, the headland between the two last-named fjords. I dare not estimate the numbers that rose from the rocks and darkened the sky when we blew the steam-whistle in passing. I doubt whether there is any other spot in the world where an equal amount of animal life is permanently concentrated. All these feed on fish, and an examination of the map will show why—in accordance with the above speculations—they should have chosen Sverholtklubben as the best fishing-ground on the arctic face of Europe. I am fully conscious of the main difficulty that stands in the way of my explanation of the formation of the till, viz., that of finding sufficient water to float the ice, and should have given it up had I accepted Mr. Geikie’s estimate of the thickness of the great ice-sheet of the great ice age. He says (page 186) that “The ice which covered the low grounds of Scotland during the early cold stages of the glacial epoch was certainly more than 2000 feet in thickness, and it must have been even deeper than this between the mainland and the Outer Hebrides. To cause such a mass to float, the sea around Scotland would require to become deeper than now by 1400 or 1500 feet at least.”