8 ARCTIC BASALT PLATEAU 
Yenisei touching the Tunguska plateau and the river mouth, passes 
through the Atlantic region as far as the mouth of the river Mac- 
kenzie; then he mentions the basalts on the Siberian mainland | 
opposite the New Siberian Islands (Cape Svyatoy Noss) and returns 
to the point of departure over the Yenisei region. There are two 
gaps to fill out here: the great jump from the river Mackenzie to 
the New Siberian Islands, and the other from the mouth of the | 
Yenisei to Franz Joseph Land, the first being a very great one, | 
whilst the second is more insignicant and not much greater than | 
between Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen, but of an other character; | 
the space Jan Mayen-Spitsbergen is covered by the ocean and not | 
accessible to detailed investigations, whilst there are between the 
mouth of the Yenisei and Franz Joseph Land landmasses as Novaya 
Zemlia, the Solitude Island and the Nicholas Land, waiting for geo- | 
logical elucidation, the first of them in her eastern parts. | 
The writer had the opportunity to hold in his hands an important | 
material of arctic plateau basalts from regions, which do cover the | 
whole ground of.the eastern area as marked out by Suess, and | 
hereto besides some material from the relieved interstices between 
the Atlantic and the eastern area at the east and the west, and the | 
petrological examination was advanced to the stadium which affords | 
the rock analyses, and some of them were already executed; but 
then the material was lost and the greater part of the field and | 
laboratory annotations were too, by accident lying outside the writer's 
power. Only small fragments were saved, and the author believes 
that it might be of interest to publish them at a moment, when the 
Scientific investigation seems to be awakened to new efforts. 
