THE JURASSIC COAL OF SPITZENBERGEN 83 



fiord, y^° \o' , extending inland to y^° 50', with numerous bays, 

 Dickson, Klass Billen, Sassen and Advent, and Bell's sound, 

 77° 30', with Lewis sound and Recherche bay as its principal 

 divisions. All of these are more or less accessible from the 

 middle of June until some time in September. 



This ready accessibility of the west coast has encouraged 

 attempts to utilize the mineral resources. Many years ago a 

 deposit of phosphates was discovered on Icefiord but the effort 

 to work it proved to be unprofitable. Coal was discovered 

 almost one hundred years ago in the northern portion on Kings 

 bay, where it was mined by Dutch whalers. Keilhau found 

 coal on Cross bay in 1827 and in 1861 Bloomstrand rediscov- 

 ered the deposit on Kings bay, the glacier concealing it having 

 retreated. He traced the bed for 7,000 feet but was unable to 

 ascertain its thickness though he determined that the coal is 

 brilliant, with conchoidal fracture, burning completely to ash 

 and showing here and there some woody structure. The asso- 

 ciated plant remains were long leaves and stems of deciduous 

 plants.' 



Von Buch cites Robert as an authority for the statement that 

 whale fishermen had taken sixty tons of coal from Icefiord to 

 Hammerfest, evidently prior to 1839; and he says that Cala- 

 mites, Sigillaria and even Lepidodendron are not of rare occur- 

 rence in these coals. ^ The Swedish expedition under Nathorst 

 and DeGeer in 1882 studied very carefully the deposits on Ice- 

 fiord and Bell's Sound. They succeeded in rediscovering a 

 coal horizon on Advent Bay, but were unable to determine 

 whether or not it is of workable thickness. An important col- 

 lection of plants made in that year by Nathorst and described 

 by him in 1897, enabled him to determine the age of the deposit 

 as upper Jurassic^ It is certain that the Carboniferous plants 



1 Bloomstrand' s publication in the Trans, of the Stockholm Academy is not acces- 

 sible to the writer and the reference is taken from F. Mohr, Geshichte der Erde, 

 1866, pp. 128-9. 



2 Robert, Bull. Sac. Geol. du France, xiii, as cited by von Buch, Berlin Akad. 

 des Wissenschaften^, May, 1846, p. 73. 



3 A. G. Nathorst, *'Zur Mesozoischen Flora Spitzbergens," Trans. A'. Srenska 

 Vetenskaps Akad., Band 30, No. I, pp. 5, et seq. 



