10 : ARCTIC BASALT PLATEAU 
representing extrusive lava flows upon aj nearly perfect peneplain 
swept over the relatively undisturbed upper mesozoic sediments of 
a different age, consequently concealing smaller faults in the bed 
rock and developing slight unconformities at their base; to 
this group belong the basalts (diabases) of the north-western Stor- 
fiord, beginning from Mt. Teist and Mt. Edlund, culminating in the 
Mt. Hellwald group near Helis sound, and continuing on the shores 
of the southern Hinlopen Strait; the greater part of the Franz Joseph 
Land basalts is also reckoned hitherto. Or these basalts occur as 
homogeneous sills, simple and multiple, and as dikes of various 
sizes, as in the eastern part of the Storfiord region, on the shores 
of Sassen bay, at Cape Thordsen, in Bellsound (Recherche bay and 
others), and on King Charles Land at the east, always cutting through 
or enclosed by mesozoic rocks, and air exposed by denudation of 
different degree; they always seem to be in close alliance with 
faulting processes. | 
Ås a matter of fact, there are two marks which always enable us 
to discover the tracks of the plateau, namely 1) traces of unfolded 
sedimentary rocks of upper mesozoic (or tertiary) age, and 2) the 
erosion base on these, or upon older even undisturbed rocks, the 
older the rock the greater in value the unconformity; this latter 
statement fixes these basalts as continental flows. Both these marks 
have their importance together (when tertiary rocks are absent) or 
each alone. 
3. NEW EVIDENCES OF THE ARCTIC VOLCANIC ACTION. 
A short review of the arctic coasts of the Asiatic continent at the 
far east, as far as they are known, gives us no strong evidences 
upon occurrences of arctic basalts in their close signification between 
Behring sound and Cape Svyatoy Noss. Washington describes 
foyaite and comendite rocks rich in potash, from Cape Deshnev, * 
1 H. S. Washington, Igneous rocks from Eastern Siberia. Amer. Journ. of Sc. 
13. 1902, p. 175. 
