THE ROCKS OF DISKO ISLAND 79 



in the photograph, are the hills of the mainland 

 showing a strip of white against the sky where a 

 depression in the coast-line reveals the edge of 

 the inland ice. The dyke shown in profile on the 

 edge of the sandstone slope in Fig. 36 is seen at 

 close quarters in Fig. 37; it resembles a partially 

 ruined, rusty brown wall on a wind-worn, denuded 

 field of sand, the result of disintegration of beds 

 of soft sandstone. Here and there, adhering to the 

 sides of the dyke, are blocks of sandstone which 

 were hardened and rendered more resistent to 

 denuding agents by contact with the molten rock 

 which welled up against their fissured sides. 



For the most part the sandstones and shales are 

 light yellow or dark grey in colour, but in some 

 places the same beds exposed on the scarps of the 

 hills are bright red, while others simulate yellow- 

 white porcelain with clearly defined impressions or 

 moulds of leaves and twigs. These red and yellow- 

 ish white rocks, which ring under the hammer, 

 owe their colour and texture to burning. They are 

 sandstones and shales altered in all probability as 

 the result of some spontaneous combustion. 



Standing on the slopes of the hills one looks 

 across from the south shore of the Nugssuaq Pen- 

 insula to the mountains of Disko Island on the 

 other side of the Vaigat a distance of eight or ten 

 miles though in the clear atmosphere it seems 

 much less the foot-hills with screes and talus- 

 slopes surmounted by volcanic rocks, lines or 

 patches of snow picking out the layered succession 

 of lava-flow and ash. The identity in geological 



