342 GIESECKE, CRYOLITE- OF GREENLAND. 



sight I suspected it might be a small glacier ; but considering 

 that no such thing could exist, at this time of the year, so near 

 the sea, I landed, and I found, to my great astonishment, a bed of 

 Cryolite, the geological situation of which had been hitherto so 

 doubtful. 



The islands which lie across or shut up, as it were, the mouth 

 of this frith, consist of coarse-granular granite. The lofty moun- 

 tain Kogiiekpamiedlucet (Engl., the clifted rock with the long 

 tail), which rises on the left side of the entrance of the frith, 

 and which is a landmark to the navigator, is composed of the same 

 granite, but with overlying syenite, the felspar of which is 

 beautifully labradoric. This granite continues uninterrupted for 

 eight miles on both sides of the frith of Arksut, when it dis- 

 appears and alternates with gneiss. This gneiss forms the shores 

 on both sides of the frith for from seven to eight miles, to the 

 spot called IvikcBt by the natives, where the cryolite is found. 



The name Ivikcet (from ivik, grass) was given to this place by 

 the Greenlanders on account of its peculiar fertility. The place 

 was formerly visited by them during the summer season, on 

 account of its being a good place for fishing and drying AngmakscBt 

 (Salmo arcticus, L., the Loddeoi the Norwegians [the Capelin]) ; 

 but it was deserted 20 years ago on account of the increasing 

 floating ice. Hence it arises that we owe the first discovery of 

 cryolite to the Greenlanders, who, in finding it to be a soft sub- 

 stance, employed the water-worn rounded fragments as weights 

 on their angling lines. In this shape, the first specimens of 

 cryolite were seat by the Missionaries as an ethnographical 

 curiosity to Copenhagen. It was of course incorrectly stated in 

 some periodical papers that the cryolite was discovered by me ; 

 I only found its geological situation, and I dare say by a mere 

 accident. 



The cryolite is found, as I mentioned before, near to the shore, 

 resting immediately upon gneiss. This rock, which here forms 

 the shore of the frith, is under water during the tide, as well as 

 the superincumbent cryolite, and both are very much decomposed 

 where they are in contact with each other. The gneiss is metalli- 

 ferous, and intersected by small horizontal and vertical veins 

 of quartz, from the thickness of I inch to that of 3 or 4 inches, 

 containing tinstone, accompanied by arsenical pyrites, common 

 iron-pyrites, small particles of wolfram, and lithomarge; tlie 

 whole bearing a striking resemblance to the tinstone veins in 

 Saxony and Bohemia. The tinstone occurs massive and crystal- 

 lised in imperfect octahedrons ; the arsenical pyrites is partly 

 massive, partly crystallised in oblique four-sided prisms ; the iron- 

 pyrites occurs only disseminated. 



At a distance of about 120 fathoms from this spot, there is an 

 extensive bed of large quartz crystals, similar to those found 

 near Zinnwald in Bohemia ; but they are throughout in a per- 

 pendicular position, some of them measuring a foot in length, and 

 from 4 to 5 inches in thickness, containing small imbedded 

 crystals of tinstone of the above-mentioned forms. This bed is 

 intersected by a nearly vertical vein of compact fluor, of the 



