424 PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 



Fig. 7. — Section before any modern denudation had taken place, 

 a. Tertiary strata without erratic blocks. 

 h. Glacial strata with erratic blocks. 



where, as is the case in most of the places where plant-remains are 

 found, fresh sections are exposed, it is evident that these blocks 

 have been washed down from superjacent glacial strata of more 

 recent date {b), and in no wise belonged originally to the Tertiary 

 strata (a), on which they now lie. The accompanying Figs. 7 

 and 8 show this clearly : — 



Fig. 8. — Section along a modem mountain-stream (c— c'), with blocks derived 



from the glacial deposits at the surface. 



a, 6/as in fig. 7. 



These Tertiary beds therefore do not afford any evidence that 

 the favourable climatic circumstances of the Tertiary era have been 

 interrupted by a separate glacial period, which has subsequently 

 disappeared. The Cretaceous, Miocene, and recent sand-beds are 

 in outward appearance perfectly alike ; and, if a new elevation 

 should expose the sand-beds now in process of formation in many 

 places at the bottom of the Waigat, it would be very difficult, 

 wherever they are destitute of organic remains, to distinguish these 

 from the Cretaceous sand-beds at Kome, or the Miocene beds at 

 Atanekurdluk, Isungoak, &c. 



It was formerly supposed that all the coal-beds of Greenland 

 belong to the same geological period. Heer's important discovery 



