422 PKOF. NORDENSKTOLP, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 



hyperite, forms at Atanekerdluk, near the shore, a hill several 

 thousand feet high. 



The basalt beds are 50 to 100 feet thick, and may be traced for 

 miles along the shores, often separated from each other by thin 

 layers of red basaltic clay. Sometimes the layers are crossed by 

 dykes of a hard, fine-grained basalt. 



Not only dykes, but also basalt beds, on the cooling of the 

 melted mass, or during the drying and crystallizing process which 

 the volcanic ashes have undergone in their transformation to 

 basalt, have been broken into regular columns, mostly hexagonal. 

 Brannvinshamn, SkarfFjall, Kudliset, and other places on Disko 

 and the peninsula of Noursoak, afford examples of this kind of 

 basaltic structure, comparable in magnificence with Staffa and 

 other geologically famous European localities. 



Volcanic eruptions, as has been above remarked, no longer 

 occur in this region. Yet, in consequence of the rapidity with 

 which basalt is destroyed, layers of basaltic sand constantly collect 

 on the shores — beds which, in the course of thousands of years, 

 may, under favourable circumstances, harden into a rock not 

 distinguishable from real basalt, unless perhaps it be that, as these 

 beds are deposited in the sea, they may contain marine fossils, 

 which tuff's of the real basalt formations do not. Such a hardened 

 fossiliferous basaltic sand occurs at Pattorfik, in Omenakfjord, and 

 between that place and Sarfarfik. This stratum, which has already 

 been described, is, however, evidently far more recent than the 

 newest beds of the real basalt. See p. 409. 



Young as are the colonies in these parts, tradition can never- 

 theless adduce sundry examples of the rapidity with which basalt 

 rocks are destroyed. It is difficult to induce a Greenlander to 

 penetrate by boat into the inner parts of the three fjords which 

 cut into the west coast of Disko Island. The reason of this is 

 said to be, that on one occasion a whole house with all its inhabi- 

 tants was crushed by a sudden fall of a basalt rock. At Godhavn, 

 on the brow of a basalt mountain, there were formerly twelve huge 

 projecting elevations, called " the twelve apostles." Of these there 

 is now but one remaining. 



In the immediate neighbourhood of Godhavn the basalt either 

 extends quite down to the sea, or lies immediately upon the 

 gneiss formation, which there forms the shore-cliffs. On row- 

 ing from this point further to the east, as soon as Skarffjiillet 

 is passed,* beds of sand or sandstone are found nearest the shore, 

 increasing in thickness as we approach the Waigat, so that at 

 Flakkerhook and Isungoak they form mountains of 1,500 to 2,000 

 feet high, frequently crowned with a perpendicular basalt diadem. 

 The same formation is met with on the other side of the Waigat 

 at Atanekerdluk. Further north-west in the strait, however, 

 the conformable sandstone and basalt sink again, so that before 



•^ Some of these beds (at Piiilasok and Sinnifik) nearest Godhavn are how- 

 ever more recent than the great basalt formation, i.e., stratified between, not 

 under, some the rocks of this formation. 



