428 THE GERMAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



placing the young ones in the centre, they all take to 

 flight, reversing these tactics whenever they are pursued. 

 A geological excursion to the small clefts in the valley of 

 the basin-shaped land, which rose a few hundred feet, would 

 have been well worth the trouble. The completely hori- 

 zontal strata of micaceous sandstone (containing fossil 

 bivalves), belonging to the mesozoic* epoch, contained 

 layers of lias coal, dark and sometimes syenitic^ gneiss, 

 and a reddish degenerate kind of the same. 



In the evening the island of Koldewey, many hundred 

 feet high, came above the horizon, distorted by the refrac- 

 tion into wild forms. Against the ever-increasing wind we 

 sought to warm ourselves by pulling hard at the sledge; but 

 noses, feet, and hands were all endangered. The distance 

 travelled lately amounted to from ten to fifteen English 

 miles daily. We had gone over the north end of Shannon, 

 and saw icebergs in increasing numbers before us. 



On the 2nd of April a snow-storm again kept us in the 

 tent. On the 3rd we reached the north end of Hoch- 

 stetter's Promontory, formed by Cape Oswald Heer, next 

 to the most northerly boundary of the explored country 

 in East Greenland. The peninsula of Haystack, miscalled 

 by Clavering an island, forms this boundary with a 

 pyramidal summit of from 600 to 700 feet high. 



Near to this mountain our sledge broke down in the 

 evening for the second time ; this, however, caused no 

 loss of time, as the ascent of Mount Haystack, a point 

 so important for the determination of our positions, 

 could upon no account be left undone. The mountain 

 is, as it were, sprinkled with erratic blocks, belonging 

 partly to a very recent formation, and, like the high ridge 

 . * i. e. Secondary. (^V.) 



