Upper 



Carboniferous 



strata. 



Middle 



Carboniferous 



strata. 



The marine Carboniferous of North-east Greenl. and its Brachiopod Fauna. 595 



has become fairly thorough, and, more especially, Wiman's mono- 

 graph has given us a detailed account of their brachiopod fauna. 



The classification of the Carboniferous of Beren Eiland made 

 by JoH. Gunnar Andersson (1901, Tab. 1) is that shown by the 

 following Table, although the reader should first be reminded that 

 here Andersson — like Wiman, too, in his summary-table, p. 10 — 

 employs the triple division of the Carboniferous system employed 

 by Russian geologists 



C. Spirifer limestone 



Unconformity. 



B2. Cora limestone 



Bi. Coral limestone 



Unconformity. 



Ai. Fusiilina limestone 



Аз. Sandstone (non-fossiliferous) 



Ai. Ainbigua limestone 



Unconformity. 



To this classification Nathorst (1910, p. 284) adds the remark 

 that: "die Abwechselung der Sedimente, das Vorkommen von Sand- 

 steinsbänken im Spiriferen Kalk, u. s. w. auf noch mehr Veränder- 

 ungen des Meeresniveaus deuten (?), als aus dem obigen Schema 

 allein hervorgeht". 



It is just these great changes in the strata that appear to me 

 to be worthy of our attention when making a comparison between 

 the Carboniferous of North-east Greenland and other similar deposits 

 in the Arctic regions. 



The oldest limestone deposit, the ambigua limestone, is a red 

 and white mottled limestone possessing definite petrographical ana- 

 logies in the Lower marine group in our collections from North-east 

 Greenland. Of brachiopods, the ambigua limestone contains (after 

 Wiman's revision), Athyris ambigua Sow., Eumetria serpentina De 

 Kon., Spirifer supramosquensis Nik., and Spirifer cameraliis Morton. 

 Both Andersson and Wiman compare the Ambigua limestone with 

 the mosquensis level, a connection, the correctness of which appears 

 to me somewhat doubtful; Spirifer supramosquensis belongs, in any 

 case, to a higher level than Sp. mosquensis (see for example, Frech. 

 Lethæa, p. 301), and Sp. cameratns is a typical Upper Carboniferous 

 species. The Fusnlina limestone is a bituminous limestone both on 

 Beeren Eiland and on Spitzbergen, even if, in the former locality it 

 has no claim to the denomination "sai)ropelite". Later investigat- 

 ions have proved that the Fusulina occurring in Beeren Eiland is 

 not the Russian Fusulina çylindrica, but a species, belonging to the 

 subgenus Schellwienia. Consequently, the Fusulina limestone of the 



