34 
and not accompanied by any chemical alteration; even the 
sodalite crystals lie quite fresh in the rubbish. At certain places, 
it is true, there are found varieties of the naujaite, where the 
sodalite has throughout been converted into spreustein, and 
in which the other minerals are also more less altered; but 
the local distribution of these varieties and the nature of the 
secondary minerals show, that these have not arisen from any 
atmospheric decay but from the action of hot sources, belonging 
to a period long passed away. 
Owing to the rapid crumbling of the naujaite all the more 
level stretches are covered with a continuous layer of debris 
from the rock. So long as this layer is moist — thus in spring 
when the snows are melting — it glides slowly or at intervals 
abruptly downwards, thus forming an excellent example of the 
solifluction mentioned in the preceding chapter; later on in the 
summer it becomes completely dried, and no movement seems 
to take place in it. As a result of the crumbling of the rock 
and the rapid drying of the rubbish, the naujaite ground is 
practically devoid of vegetation. The landscape is whitish gray and 
waste; only here and there in a shallow depression, where a brook 
spreads moisture around, do we find small green shoots of plants. 
A well-marked system of partings divides the naujaite in- 
to sheets, ranging in thickness from half a meter to three me- 
ters; on the stretch considered here, between Nunasarnausak 
and Lille Elv, the sheets have in general an inclination of about 
15° towards the north-west, but local differences are frequent. 
At Lille Elv and east therefrom the inclination is on an average 
a little greater, about 20°, and the dip is towards the west. Asa 
rule there are two series of almost vertical joints at right angles to 
each other and as the crumbling proceeds most rapidly along 
the joints, the rock appears divided into huge parallelopipeda (Pl. 
VIII, fig. 1). At many places the remains spared by the weathering 
have a distinctly roundish form; loose, crumbling, spheroidal 
masses of 2—4 meters in diameter are common. 
