556 STEVENSON— FOR^IATIOX OF COAL BEDS. [November 3, 



tinuous. Potonie*^ has given reproductions of two photographs, one 

 from Jan Mayen and the other by Nathorst from Amsterdam island. 

 The drift material is scattered irregularly, as one should expect, with 

 here and there a considerable pile. The fragments, some of which 

 are very large, are thoroughly battered — the whole resembling very 

 closely what one sees on the gravel flats of rivers subject to flood. 



Crantz*" was among the first to describe the driftwood deposits 

 of Greenland and adjacent regions, and his statements have been 

 cited again and again, acquiring the increment which usually comes 

 with frequent repetition. In the driftwood on those shores he saw 

 many great trees, which had been torn out by the roots and which, 

 through driving and dashing amid the ice for many years, had been 

 deprived of bark and branches and had been bored by worms. A 

 small part of this debris consisted of willows, alders and birches 

 from bays in southern Greenland ; with these were aspens from some 

 more distant region ; but the predominant forms are pine and fir 

 with great abundance of a fine grained wood, with few branches, 

 which he took to be larch. With these is a reddish wood of agree- 

 able odor, resembling the Zirbel of the Alps. The grouping shows 

 that the trees came from a fertile but cool or alpine region. 



The drift could not have come from the American coast at the 

 southwest as the current is contrary ; it must have come with the 

 icy current. It is most plentiful on the coast of Iceland and, on the 

 southwest side of Jan Mayen in X. L. 75°, there are two bays in 

 which there is so nnich wood, driven in by the ice, that a ship might 

 be loaded with it. He thinks the wood may have come from Siberia, 

 where pine and cedar abound, though it may have come from the 

 west coast of North America by way of Bering strait. 



Crantz may be right or wrong in his suggestion respecting the 

 source of the material; that is unimportant. His description shows 

 that the mass, though considerable, is comparatively insignificant. 

 The accunuilation on the Jan Mayen bays, instead of being a closely 



" H. Potonie, " Die Entstelnmg der Steinkolile uiid der Kaustobiolithe 

 iiberhaupt," Berlin, Funfte Aufl., iQio, p. 126; NatHrzinss.-JVochinschrift, 

 Vol. IV., Part 4- 



*" D. Crantz, "The History of Greenland," I'-ng. Trans., London, 1820, 

 Vol. L, pp. 35-37. 



154 



