HILL WITH BANDS OF COAL. 229 



mistook several of them for seals, until we got close 

 enough to discover our mistake. These stones 

 probably tumbled off the hills on the ice while it 

 lay in an unbroken sheet across the fiord, and were 

 now being transported about to be deposited else- 

 where. 



We had a cold and fatiguing row back to the 

 yacht, and did not reach her until we had been 

 twenty-eight hours absent. 



As I expected, Lord David had found his valley 

 full of deer, and had shot a boat-load of them. His 

 men had farther to carry them than mine had, so 

 they did not reach the yacht until after an absence 

 of nearly forty hours. 



I observed two very singular mountains in this 

 trip up the high fiord. One of these was a long, 

 large hill of about 1500 feet in height, and appar- 

 ently composed of the same shaly, sandy limestone 

 as mostly all of the lower hills of East Spitzber- 

 gen ; but it had a perfectly flat or tabular top, and 

 the upper stratum, as well as another band about 

 the middle of the hill, were composed of black sub- 

 stance, which I supposed to be coal. I was not 

 within several miles of the hill, but I estimated the 

 thickness of each of these black bands at about 

 twenty feet. Their substance was evidently pretty 

 hard, as the ends of the bands stood up perpendic- 

 ularly, instead of participating in the otherwise uni- 

 form 45° slope of the hill. At the left-hand or 

 southwesterly side of the hill I could perceive that 



