102 GEOLOGY OF BLACK POINT. 



mountains are each about twelve hundred feet 

 in height, and this may be stated as about the 

 average height of the lower ranges on both 

 sides of East Spitzbergen. The granitic peaks 

 of the central range are much higher, but they 

 are everywhere quite inaccessible, and are only 

 to be seen here and there peeping out from 

 amongst the glaciers. Black Point is composed 

 of a dark-grey or mud-coloured limestone and 

 sandstone of a soft and shaly description, which 

 is stratified very numerously or minutely, and 

 with almost exact parallelism to the sea ; only 

 in one or two small places did I observe slight 

 bends or deflections from the horizontally of 

 the stratification; in the lower part of the 

 precipice there is, amongst the sandstone, 

 an irregular-looking band of dark-brown or 

 brownish-black coal, but this for the greater 

 part is concealed by the talus before men 

 tioned. The limestone contains a great num 

 ber of fossils, many of which I collected. 



Black Point and Whalefish Point are both 

 very deeply furrowed from top to bottom, and 

 these furrows being generally full of snow, 

 while the dark-grey ridges between them are 

 bare, give the mountains a sort of ribbed 

 appearance, which renders them very conspi- 



