6p LAUGE KOCH 



the basalt areas of Greenland. If this be correct, all the basalt 

 occurrences geographically form a unit also. 



The basalts have protected some of the sediments against 

 erosion, as for instance the well-known fossiUferous strata of 

 Cretaceous and Tertiary origin in west Greenland and a small 

 area with Tertiary marine fossils on the east coast. The conditions 

 of deposition of the basalts, however, are but Kttle known. On the 

 east coast they appear to have been deposited on the northeastern 

 corner of the southern gneiss plane, no fractures intervening. 

 Exactly similar conditions are found in Disko Bay on the west 

 coast. Here we can trace the southern gneiss plane from the low 

 skerries at Egedesminde northward across some reefs and groups 

 of islands to the skerries at Godhavn and in Disko Fiord, where 

 basalt beds of a thickness of i,ooo meters rest on gneiss. Some 

 of the basalts north of Disko, on the other hand, seem to be divided 

 from the northern gneiss surface by cleavages. The elevation of 

 the basalt plateaus is i,ooo meters at Godhavn. In 70° N. lat. the 

 height is 2,000 meters, and north of this it again decreases. The 

 chief center of eruption of the basalt seems to have been about 

 where Vaigat now is. This element in the structure of Greenland, 

 then, forms the western part of a series of strata which has its 

 greatest extension in the Atlantic. 



The American elements, then, are the following: (i) the northern, 

 and (2) the southern gneiss planes, which both form parts of the 

 great Canadian shield, and (3) the Paleozoic sediments, which 

 form the northwestern part of the widely extended series of strata 

 which covers great portions of the Arctic archipelago. 



Elements showing relationship on the eastern side, with Europe, 

 are as follows: (i) the Greenland part of the Caledonian folding 

 zone, (2) the fracture zone in east Greenland, and (3) the great 

 basalt area which, besides being extended in the Atlantic, is also 

 found at both ends of the depression across Greenland. 



V. THE GREENLAND FIOEDS 



Few countries contain so many and such large fiords as Greenland 

 and yet many of these fiords are still in part ice filled. Geographi- 

 cally they may be divided into three types: 



