456 Prof. NordensMold — Expedition to Greenland. 



Fig. U. — Bituminized tree stem from Atanekerdluk 



saw, as the annexed woodcut indicates, the roots branch out in an 

 underlying clay-bed. There can, therefore, be no doubt that these 



trunks once grew in the place 

 ^^°- ^^- where they are now found. 



Above these strata is sand, 

 then a thick stratum of basalt, 

 over which sand again, and 

 lastly a basalt bed of perhaps 

 2000 feet thick, and, as far as 

 one can judge from a distance, 

 not interstratified with layers 

 of sand or slate. 



At Atanekerdluk itself the 

 strata follow the direction of 

 the strait (or, more correctly 

 speaking, run true NNW. 

 SSE.^), and the slope, as in- 

 dicated in the following sec- 

 tions, taken from a ravine the 

 direction of which was at right angles to the shore, is 8°-32° ENE. 

 Further up in the strait the strata , gradually sink, so that the 

 capping of basalt, a little north of Atane, reaches down to the surface 

 of the sea. The perturbations at Atanekerdluk, therefore, seem to 

 have been only local, and on the whole the strata would seem to lie 

 pretty nearly horizontal, with a slight dip to NW. 



This Miocene formation has evidently in former times extended 

 completely over the Waigat to Disko Isle, at the south-east angle of 

 which it attains its greatest thickness. One may here see from the 

 sea sandhills of 2000 or 3000 feet high, often, but not always, con- 

 taining basalt-beds. The chief substance of the mountains consists 

 of vast horizontal sand-beds, interstratified with thinnish beds of clay, 

 and occasional horizontal coal-bands, and carbonized stems of trees, 

 sometimes in their original position and of considerable size. A 

 stem of this kind, two feet in diameter, was, for example, seen in a 

 rock in the district about Mudderbugten, The quantity of carbonized 

 stems of trees is often so great that it is worth the while of the 

 Greenlanders to collect and use them as fuel. Silicified stems of trees 

 are also met with, though more rarely. The greatest number of im- 

 pressions of leaves occur on the western shore of the Waigat, as 

 also at Atanekerdluk, almost invariably imbedded in hard, grey 

 ferruginous claystone, that turns red by exposure to the corroding 

 effect of the atmosphere (" Atanekerdlukstone"), which forms either 

 peculiar beds of one or two inches thick and a few fathoms in extent, 

 or lenticular masses imbedded in sand or clay, or small balls inserted 

 in huge, almost spherical sandstone nodules, detached from the sand 

 by the infiltration of some conglomerating medium, often of remark- 



^ Mean of several observations made in the ravine along the side of which I 

 ascended this slope. Brown gives E. andW. as the direction. The difference probably 

 arises from the circumstance that the magnetic perturbations at Atanekerdluk are of 

 a local nature, and thus different in different ravines. 



