426 Pi'of. NordensMold — Expedition to Greenland. 



name is taken from the place where the chief coal-bed is found, and 

 from which, in all probability, the plant impressions came, which 

 were brought thence by Giesecke and Eink. These strata, however, 

 occur not only at Kome, but all along the above-mentioned coast, 

 with the exception of a few interruptions by gneiss hills. The 

 Kome strata, as the accompanying section shows, rest immediately 

 upon undulating gneiss-beds, probably filling up old valleys and de- 

 pressions between them. Higher up the gneiss is covered by erup- 

 tive rock. The strata generally lie tolerably horizontal, sometimes 

 even with a dip inwards of as much as 20° towards the peninsula of 

 Noursoak. They are most developed in the neighbourhood of the 

 two extremities, Ekkorfat and Kome, where the thickness exceeds a 

 thousand feet. 



As the plant fossils occur almost exclusively in the lowest strata, 

 we cannot, without a careful examination of the few fossils we have 

 brought home from the upper strata, decide whether the whole of 

 this vast series of strata belong to the same geological formation or 

 not. It is, however, probable the upper portion, distinguished by 

 its thick coal-bed, belongs to the next division. 



Most part of the Kome strata consists of sand or a loose sandstone, 

 often, however, inter stratified with beds of slate and bands of coal. 

 The slate is generally mixed with sand, and, as it were, thoroughly 

 corroded by acids, and in these cases so loose that the plant fossils 

 it may perhaps contain can scarcely be preserved. Fortunately there 

 is also found, especially in the neighbourhood of the lowest coal- 

 beds, a harder, sometimes argillaceous, sometimes talcose, slate with 

 numerous impressions, chiefly of ferns and Coniferas (not only twigs, 

 but cones, see'ds, and leaves). The leaves especially occur in abund- 

 ance, generally transformed into a dark brown, semitransparent, 

 parchment-like mass, resembling the vegetable parchment which is 

 produced by the action of sulphuric acid on lignite. Some beds 

 occur in which these leaves are so numerous that the beds form a felt, 

 which is flexible, and can almost be ravelled, woven of leaves and 

 other similarly transformed remnants of plants. It is possible that 

 this fossilization depends upon the action of the acid gases which 

 have come forth during the volcanic eruptions and condensed them- 

 selves in the waters of the locality, and thus that the condition of 

 the fossil leaves is connected with the extremely corroded appearance 

 of the slate and sandstone. 



The most important of the coal-beds^ occur in the upper part of 

 the strata at Kome, but bands of coal are interstratified with the 

 slate in many other places, but they are not very extensive, though 

 sufficient to provide a few Greenland households with the few tons 

 of coal they want in the year. At present, according to the state- 

 ment of the Governor of the colony, coal is thus collected, not only 

 at Kome, but also at Sarfarfik, Pattorfik, Avkrusak, and, though less 

 frequently, at Ekkorfat. 



To this, or rather to a still more recent formation, belongs also 



1 As stated above, the coal -beds probably do not belong to the under, but to the 

 wpper Cretaceous (the Atane beds). 



