96 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



system, as well as by the folds of the Precambrian basement complexes, 

 (Archeozoic granite gneisses, etc.), which appear from under a cover 

 of younger sediments north of the sea of Asow and along river 

 courses between Dnieper and Bug, and in Volhynia, it has been 

 shown by Suess (v. j. pt 1) from the work of Karpinsky and other 

 Russian geologists that the Russian basement complex is a western 

 continuation of the Sayan moiety of the ancient vertex of Asia. Suess 

 (v. 3, pt 1, p. 478) further demonstrates that in the large Fenno- 

 Scandinavian or " Baltic shield " again the Sayan direction of 

 trendlines appears, namely, in middle Finland and in northern 

 Russia north of the Ladoga and Onega lakes one finds a north- 

 northwest trend of the Precambrian folds, which often closely 

 approaches the meridional direction and corresponds to the main 

 direction of the Ural. North of Onega lake this direction changes 

 by a flat curve into a north-northeast direction, that in its turn 

 corresponds to the northern portion of the slightly convex Ural 

 folds. On the other hand, the middle Finnish north-northwest 

 direction continues northwestward into the peninsula of Kola, 

 where it becomes first northwest and finally west-northwest. West 

 of Ladoga lake the north-northwest strike still prevails and con- 

 tinues into northern Sweden. In the middle of the Baltic shield, 

 in middle Finland, in Smaland and north of there, immense 

 batholiths appear which locally dominate the direction of the 

 Precambrian folds between them. A long meridional line of 

 disturbance (line of the Wettern), more than 5 degrees long, 

 separates the eastern and western Scandinavian Precambrian 

 areas. The nature of this line is, according to Suess (v. 3, 

 pt 1, p. 479), not yet quite certain. In southwest Sweden the 

 granite gneiss has a dominant north-south strike; in Norway, 

 however, the Finnish north-northwest direction reappears and pre- 

 vails as far as the trough of Christiania. The Baltic shield, Seder- 

 holm's Fenno-Scandia, appears thus as an integral part of the Pre- 

 cambrian platform of Russia, and thereby as a further continuation 

 of the Sayan moiety of thf> Asiatic vertex. 



Suess (v. 3, pt 1, p. 454; v. 3, pt 2) vividly describes how this 

 ancient Precambrian platform is in Europe on most sides invaded 

 by the younger folds ; in the west by those of the Caledonian system, 

 west of which in the western Hebrides, as well as in a number of 

 Scottish peninsulas, we have to see already Atlantic, or eventually 

 Laurentian elements. How far this Eurasian Precambrian shield, 

 which is known to underlie the island of Bornholm between Germany 

 and Sweden, may have originally extended toward Belgium, can 



