NEW PHYSIOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF GREENLAND 45 



account when considering the elevation of the otherwise uniform 

 gneiss tracts. The same applies to the isolated peaks in the 

 northern part of the profile. Along the northwestern coast I have 

 ascertained that these isolated peaks did not everywhere consist 

 of gneiss but of later eruptives such as granite, syenite, and diorite 

 (e.g., Sanderson's Hope and Devil's Thumb). Hence, strictly 

 speaking, they should not have been included, but I prefer to 

 differentiate them only from sediments and basalts, as most of the 

 east coast is too little known to discriminate special granite areas. 



Apart from the above-named easily explicable irregularities in 

 the west coast profile, it will be seen that the country, from an eleva- 

 tion of about 2,000 meters in the south, slopes gently toward the 

 north, until, slightly to the south of 70° N. lat., it has become quite 

 low.. After that it rises again very suddenly to 2,000 meters, only 

 to drop again toward the north untU the gneiss surface at about 

 79° N. lat. is covered entirely by the sea and sediments. 



The east coast profile (Fig. 2) is somewhat more intricate. Thus 

 the country suddenly rises to considerable altitudes at Angmagssalik, 

 to drop as suddenly again to low areas. One of the highest peaks 

 of Greenland is found here (Mt. Forel, 2,760 meters), but it is 

 known that the high area only extends a short distance into the 

 inland ice, so that we have here a distinctly high alpine area, welL 

 isolated from the surrounding low regions. 



There can hardly be any doubt that here we have a tract which, 

 from its peculiar hardness, has resisted erosion, or, more probably 

 perhaps, a horst moving independently of the rest of Greenland. 

 The numerous earthquakes at Angmagssalik favor this conjecture. 

 Some distance to the north of Angmagssalik the gneiss surface has 

 become so low that it is quite covered by basalt. The gneiss 

 appears again in Scoresby Sound, but it is no longer low, the surface 

 lying at a height of about 2,000 meters. With one single interrup- 

 tion to the north of Franz Joseph Fiord, where the inland ice extends 

 to the sediments, we may now trace it up to 82° N. lat., where it 

 has become so low at Nordost Rundingen and at the head of 

 Danmark Fiord that it disappears below the ocean. The northern 

 part of the profile shows some few isolated peaks rising above their 

 surroundings. We know too little as yet to explain the occurrence 



