1898] NOTES AND COMMENTS 231 



xxvi., June 21, 1808), and the following are their chief conclusions. 

 The Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks lie unconformahly on a hilly base- 

 ment of old crystalline rocks and early Cretaceous basalts, and reach 

 at Atanikerdluk 3040 feet above the sea. Along the north side of 

 the peninsula the Lower Cretaceous beds have an easterly dip, 

 although the higher beds appear towards the west, probably in con- 

 sequence of faults. The sediments appear to have been derived 

 from the east, in which direction are few marine but some fresh- 

 water fossils. The deposition of sediment seems to have been con- 

 tinuous in some portion of this region throughout Cretaceous and 

 early Tertiary times, although minor movements and erosion may 

 have affected the beds before they were covered by the Tertiary 

 basalt cap. The entire thickness of the sedimentary rocks is over 

 3500 feet. 



These beds were divided by Heer into four series, on the basis 

 of their vegetable contents. Of the lowest of these, the Kome series, 

 developed on the north coast of the peninsula, a thickness of pro- 

 bably not over 700 feet is exposed above tide. The discovery of 

 additional dicotyledons in the Kome series, from which hitherto only 

 Populus primaeva was known, and which was regarded as Urgonian 

 in age by Heer, casts serious doubt on the reference of those beds 

 to so low a stage in the Lower Cretaceous. The flora as a whole is, 

 however, to be compared with that of the Virginian Potomac forma- 

 tion, with some, perhaps the upper, portion of which the Kome 

 series is probably synchronous. 



The Atane series, hitherto not positively known on the north 

 shore of Xugsuak peninsula, is clearly present at Ujarartorsuak with 

 characteristic Atane plants. Farther west, at Kook Angnertunek 

 and Niakornat, the dark homogeneous shale series probably repre- 

 sents both Atane and Patoot members of the Upper Cretaceous, since 

 of the marine organisms found here some are identical with those 

 occurring at Ata and Patoot, the typical localities for the two 

 divisions of the Upper Cretaceous. The marine invertebrates from 

 the Atane series, which Heer correlated by means of fossil plants 

 with the Cenomanian of Europe, strongly indicate that the series is 

 to be correlated with Fort Pierre and Fox Hills or Montana forma- 

 tion of the western United States. By means of its fossil plants 

 the Atane series is so closely related to the Vineyard series of 

 Martha's Vineyard, the Amboy clays of the Paritan region of New 

 Jersey, or the uppermost Potomac of Alabama, as to furnish strong 

 reason for the belief that the middle one of Heer's groups is the 

 Greenland contemporary of the Amboy clays. The Patoot series, 

 which appears lithologically and stratigraphically to be inseparable 

 from the Atane series, contains at the same time many plants 

 common in the upper part of the Amboy clays, with others allied 



