GLACIAL STUDIES IN GREENLAND. 77 \ 



general respects those of the Laurentian formation. A low 

 hook of this gneiss running out from the base of the cliffs, 

 and embracing an arm of the sea, forms the little harbor of 

 Godhaven. Although here confined to the horizon of the sea 

 level, it is evident that the gneissic series is more than a simple 

 basement of the island, for the glaciers that come down from 

 the ice cap bring bowlders of gneiss, from which the inference 

 is safe that the series rises to the summit at no great distance 

 back from the sea frontage. Apparently the later rocks are 

 built about a nucleus of ancient gneiss. 



Resting unconformably upon the gneissic series is a mass of 

 irregular basic igneous rock, largely a volcanic agglomerate, ris- 

 ing somewhat more than a third of the way to the summit. 

 This is exceedingly irregular in structure. Some parts of it are 

 but a rude agglomeration of very coarse volcanic fragments of 

 the roughest type. Although but obscurely bedded, taken as a 

 whole it constitutes a rude stratum upon which, in turn, rises a 

 very regularly bedded igneous series which constitutes the upper 

 and more symmetrical portion of the cliffs. This series appears 

 to consist of very uniform basaltic flows, separated by clastic 

 volcanic material, a portion of which is a bright red silt-rock, 

 whose high color gives distinctness and conspicuousness to the 

 bedding. This regularity of bedding and the symmetrical 

 degradation of the series, with its brownish aspect, gives it, at a 

 distance, much the appearance of some of the Triassic and Ter- 

 tiary terranes of brown sandstone. 



The sandstone series that is well known to occur in the 

 island was not observed in the immediate vicinity of Godhaven, 

 but a few miles north, in the valley of Blase Dale, it appears 

 abundantly in the drift in places, and may be occasionally seen 

 in situ. 



Along the sides of the valleys which cut back into the pla- 

 teau the bedded volcanic series at the top usually gives rise to 

 vertical or steeply sloping faces, while the rough massive agglom- 

 erates form irregular embossments in the lower slopes and bot- 

 toms of the valleys. The bedded series degrades the more rap- 



