GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



Being deposited on it, these layers of sandstone are, of course, younger 

 than the gneiss. No fossils have been found in them, and it is therefore 

 difficult to decide their age ; one may, however, state with certainty that they 

 are older than almost the whole — probably dating from the very earliest part 

 of the Silurian Period. 



If one travels northward past the mighty Humboldt's Glacier to Washington 

 Land, the landscape again changes entirely in character. Here also the cliffs 

 are steep and stratified, but they stand like a vertical wall along the entire 

 coast, and only at a good distance from the coast can one see the inland-ice 

 in the background above the mountains. 



These districts which, looked upon as a landscape, are so monotonous, prove 

 on closer examination to be among the most interesting in all North Greenland. 



Wherever one lands under the steep mountains one finds stones full of 

 fossils. These fossiliferous strata are found not only on Washington Land, but 

 they also form a broad belt of plateaux right up to Peary Land. It there- 

 fore seems natural in considering these formations to take them as a whole. 

 This chain of plateaux mountains, which have a height of upwards of 1,500 

 metres, forms the border of the inland-ice to the north. Only occasional 

 narrow valleys cut in between the plateaux, and through these long, almost 

 horizontal, glaciers stretch down until they reach the sea. 



Examining the fossils more closely, one will soon discover that the rocks 

 may be divided in several strata, every stratum having its characteristic fossils. 

 One will further find that these strata alternate in a definite succession every- 

 where in the north-west of Greenland. 



The oldest layers are found in the southern part of Washington Land and 

 in a narrow belt on Warming Land right in against the inland-ice. The barren 

 plain which we called the Midgard-Snake consists of these types of rock. 

 In this place the layers are superincumbent on sandstone with diabase. They 

 are of dark brown limestone with sparse remains of large octopus ; the so-called 

 orthoceratites, consisting of long tubes divided into compartments, sometimes 

 straight and sometimes spiral-formed. One sees the same animal forms in 

 flagstones and stair-stones. 



On the dark brown limestone lies a mighty series of grey and reddish lime. 

 It is mainly these layers which form the great barrier against the northern 

 push of the inland-ice. At a distance the mountains look extraordinarily 

 monumental ; as a rule they have almost vertical walls which, especially when 

 the sun is shining on them, take on a beautiful rust-red colour. Their tops 

 are flat, and in many places they are covered by a level ice-cap. Very peculiar 

 are the deep cloughs and canyons winding their way between the plateaux. 

 Whether these cloughs are formed by glaciers during the Ice Period is rather 

 doubtful ; it would seem more probable that they were present, at any rate 

 partly, before the Ice Period. One of these canyons, the Devil's Cleft, we 

 passed on our way towards the inland-ice, where we found excellent oppor- 

 tunity to examine closely the red limestone through which the clough has 

 cut its way down. 



One may walk for a long time without discovering fossils, and we may 

 say that these strata are, on the whole, poor in animal remains ; but suddenly 

 one comes across a layer so rich in fossils that they literally make up the entire 

 layer. They consist almost solely of large thick-shelled brachiopods. We 

 found such a layer in the Devil's Cleft ; at one time this must have been a 

 place situated at the bottom of the ocean where animal life has been as rich 



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