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southernmost of these areas were first made known in detail 

 through the Ryder Expedition, the third through Nathorst, 

 the fourth through the German Polar Expedition. 



The most southerly of these areas, which according to 

 Amdrup' s observations may be considered to begin in the 

 region of Kangerdlugsuak Fjord (32° W. long.) and stretches 

 north to Scoresby Sund, consists chiefly of a mighty mass 

 of basaltic rocks of the same kind as those already known 

 from Iceland and the Faroes. It was our expedition that first 

 discovered in these basalts large isolated pieces and intervening 

 layers of tertiary sediments, generally of inconsiderable extension 

 but specially interesting because, together wich plant fossils, 

 they contain a well preserved marine fauna. 



The next two areas resemble each other in that they consist 

 for the most part of sedimentary rocks, and from a topogra- 

 phical point of view in that they are traversed by perhaps the 

 most magnificent system of fjords in the world. In other re- 

 spects they are quite dissimilar. In the south lies, as a pro- 

 tection against the sea, the mass of primary rock of Liverpool 

 Land, and the tract within, which is comparatively low, is built 

 up almost exclusively of Jurassic rocks, with an underlayer of 

 older formation in the NE. only. 



No rocks as recent as this are to be found, as far as we 

 know at present, in the third area, which may be said to begin 

 in the region of Davy Sund. Almost the whole of this section 

 of the coast-belt consists of paleozoic rocks. These, first dis- 

 covered by the German Polar Expedition, were held by Toula 

 to correspond to the Hekla Hook formation of Spitzbergen. 

 They were afterwards examined by Nathorst, who found in 

 them traces of Silurian fossils, and could also indicate the 

 presence of beds of Devonian age. At the extremity of the 

 coast here occurs, in a state of fairly considerable develop- 

 ment, a series of more recent eruptive rocks, already found by 

 Scoresby and examined later by Bäckström from specimens 



