424 



Prof. Nordenskiold — EocpecUtion to Greenland. 



composed of that rock ; and that there also it is interstratified with 

 Tertiary schists is evidenced by the plant-remains that, on the 

 Assakak glacier, lie mixed with pieces of basalt on the surface of 

 the ice. 



Here also was found a piece of basalt with wood immediately 

 inclosed in the basalt ; but, with this one exception, all the fossils 

 have been found in the Coal-bearing sand and clay beds which ac- 

 company the basalt, and in G-reenland are met with only in the basalt 

 regions. I have, however, no doubt that organic remains will be 

 fomid in the red basalt clay that lies between the real basalt beds, 

 though we had not time to look for them. 



The fossils in the sedimentary strata of the trap -formation ^ in 

 Greenland consist exclusively of plant-remains, and fragments of 

 one or two insects and fresh-water mollusca ; there are no traces of 

 marine mollusca nor vertebrate animals. An extensive continent, 

 then, occupied this portion of the globe at the time when these 

 strata were deposited ; and the abundance of the sand strata, further- 

 more, seems to indicate that, during the Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 Periods, this was a vast sandy desert, varied only by oases of in- 

 considerable extent. At that time there were no glaciers in these parts. 

 For the sand strata contain no traces of any such erratic blocks or 

 large boulders as always accompany and characterize the Glacial 

 formations, and which are met with even in loose clay -beds of 

 Glacial origin, which, where a subsequent denudation has taken 

 place, cover the beds of basalt and Tertiary sand. I ought however 

 to mention that in places where both the modern Glacial forma- 

 tion and a part of the subjacent Tertiary sand have been washed away, 

 sections often occur, which, on a cursory examination, seem to 

 indicate that the Tertiary sand contains a vast quantity of erratic 

 granite and gneiss blocks. But wherever time permitted us to make 

 a careful investigation, or where, as is the case in most of the places 



Fig. 7 



Fig. 7. — Section before any modern denudation had taken place, 

 (a) Tertiary strata without erratic blocks. (J) Glacial strata with erratic blocks. 



^ I have preserved this name as used in Greenland as a common denomination for 

 the Cretaceous formation, dolerite, diahase, basalt, the Tertiary strata included in 

 basalt, as also the strata at Sinnifik and Puilasok, probably deposited shortly after the 

 cessation of the eruption of the basalt. 



