Prof. JSfordenskibld — Expedition to Greenland. 453 



The above profile shows the stratification at (Lower) Atanekerd- 

 luk. The mass of the formation consists of very fine black argil- 

 laceous slate {a), resembling the slate from Cape Starastschin, in 

 Spitzbergen, containing a quantity of plant-remains, which, how-' 

 ever, it is very difficult to preserve, in consequence of the brittleness 

 of the slate. There are no marine fossils whatever here, so that it is 

 evidently a fresh-water formation. 



At Atane the adjoining cliifs nearest to the water's edge are con- 

 cealed by stone and gravel, consisting partly of sandstone and partly 

 of basalt and basalt breccia containing zeolite. Over these we have : 



At 450 feet, horizontal strata of hard sandstone. 



At 600 feet, argillaceous slate which soon alternates with sandstone. 



At 650 feet, a thick coal-bed resting upon fine slate, with impressions of plants 

 (Upper Cretaceous) and particles of resin. Then again slate,, often inter- 

 stratified with coal-beds of considerable thickness. 



At 900 feet, a coal-bed two feet thick, from which on the side left bare by the 

 ravine a white salt has fretted out (sulphate of alumina). On this is a 

 stratum of sandstone 50 feet thick, then argillaceous slate, and over that 

 sandstone again, and lastly basalt. 



On the fossils from these places Professor Heer remarks : " The 

 fossils from the lower strata at Atanekerdluk belong probably to the 

 Upper Cretaceous. This appears from : — 



''1. The presence of a remarkable Cycad (Oycadites Dicksoni). It 

 is true that this is not altogether consistent with the supposition, 

 that these impressions belong to the Eocene formation ; but at any 

 rate no Cycad, and especially no Cycadites, has hitherto been found 

 in strata belonging to the Eocene epoch. 



•' 2. The freq\ient occurrence of ferns. 



" 3. The occurrence of a Sequoia, which can scarcely be distin- 

 guished from Sequoia BeichenbacJiii. 



" 4. And of a Credneria, of which, however, only fragments are 

 before us. 



" On the other hand, this Flora differs entirely from that at Kome, 

 especially by the presence of pretty numerous dicotyledonous leaves, 

 which are, moreover, quite unlike the Greenland Miocene plants. 

 The investigation of these fossils presents serious difficulties, as the 

 greater part of them are those of full-bordered leaves with a compli- 

 cated nervation offering but few fixed points of discrimination. One 

 leaf seems to agree with Magnolia alternans, Heer, from the Upper 

 Cretaceous of Nebraska. 



''These dicotyledonous leaves indicate the Upper Cretaceous forma- 

 tion, but to which of its subdivisions the lower strata at Atanekerd- 

 luk are to be assigned can only be determined by a closer investi- 

 gation. This new flora is, at any rate, one of the greatest discoveries 

 of the Expedition of 1870, opening, as it does, for North Greenland 

 an entirely new geological horizon, which shows that in the Arctic 

 regions, as in Europe, Dicotyledonous plants do not occur in the Ci'e- 

 taceous beneath the Gault, whereas immediately above it they 

 appear in a great variety of forms. In North Greenland then, as 

 well as in Europe and America, the vegetable world has undergone 

 great changes during the. course of the Cretaceous age." 



