GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 113 



were filled with granite, porphyry, and greenstone. In 

 these fissures all kinds of fragments are met with, and 

 many of these dykes extend without alteration beyond the 

 layers of schist, limestone, and sandstone, which they tra- 

 verse, on the one hand, into the great eruptive masses of 

 granite, syenite, and porphyry, and on the other hand, far 

 beyond the limits of the silurian region into the beds of 

 the fundamental rock. These dykes inter-cross one another 

 regularly ; the greenstone dykes are thus seen to be notably 

 the latest formations. 



In Southern Norway the series of formations cannot be. 

 traced beyond the commencement of the Devonian period. 

 Covering these immediately are those of the glacial period. 

 All the intermediate formations found elsewhere in Europe, 

 such as those of the coal measures, and the secondary and 

 tertiary formations, are entirely awanting. 



In the north there is found in the island of Ando, the 

 most northern of the islands of Vesteraolen, a sandstone 

 formation with intercalated beds of coal, and of combus- 

 tible schists of little importance. They come to the surface. 

 The fundamental rock seems to take there the form of a 

 cup, which is filled with beds of sandstone, and is now 

 covered with an extensive marsh. Elsewhere there are 

 sandstones and conglomerate of uncertain age, but sup- 

 posed to be Devonian. In the Beskadesfjeld are found 

 beds of graphite supposed to belong to the carboniferous 

 period. In the peninsula of Varjag, all the heights are 

 covered with a reddish brown conglomerate and brown 

 sandstone, supposed to belong to the Permian period ; and 

 it may be remarked in passing, that all the larger rivers 

 which traverse the plateau of Finmark are auriforous. Go^ 

 is found in small leaves or scales in the beds of the rivers, 

 and in the large gravel of the erratic deposits through 

 which they flow. The formation of these deposits is 

 attributable to what is known as glacial action, at a later 

 period of the earth's history, which will be brought under 

 consideration in connection with other phenomena which 

 are attributable to this. 



I 



