OSCILLATIONS OF THE COAST 27 



mergence of its edges. The occurrence of terraces 

 of sand and gravel at a height of from two to three 

 hundred feet above the present tide-level several 

 of which we examined containing marine shells 

 of species still living in the Arctic seas proves an 

 upward lift of the coast-line in comparatively 

 recent times. A still more recent movement, but 

 in a downward direction, is demonstrated by a 

 comparison of a series of photographs, taken over 

 a period of several years by the Danish geologist, 

 K. J. V. Steenstrup, which shows that the tangled 

 mass of brown seaweed which clings to the foot 

 of the cliffs at low water is slowly creeping up- 

 wards. The fact that iron rings for ships' cables 

 fastened into the rocks on the west coast are ex- 

 posed only at low tide is confirmatory evidence 

 that, on the west coast at least, Greenland is 

 sinking. 



The fossil-bearing rocks it was our aim to in- 

 vestigate are exposed along the shore and in the 

 ravines of Disko and other islands and especially 

 on the Nugssuaq Peninsula. Most of them were 

 deposited during the Cretaceous period; others are 

 Tertiary in age. Slabs of rock detached with the 

 aid of a pick-axe from the side of a ravine where 

 the hills are made of a succession of sheets of 

 sediment the sands and muds of some ancient 

 lake or lagoon are found to be covered with the 

 clearly outlined impressions of large leaves like 

 those of the Plane or Tulip tree, fronds of ferns 

 hardly distinguishable from species (of the genus 



