426 PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 



only twigs, but cones, seeds, and leaves). The leaves especially 

 occur iu abundance, generally transformed into a dark-brown, 

 semi-transparent, parchment-like substance, resembling the vege- 

 table parchment produced by the action of sulphuric acid on lignite. 

 Some beds occur in which these leaves are so numerous that 

 they form a flexible felt (which can almost be unravelled), woven 

 of leaves and other similarly altered remnants of plants. It is 

 possible that this fossilization depends upon the action of the 

 acid gases which have come forth during the volcanic eruptions 

 and condensed themselves in the waters of the locality, and that 

 the condition of the fossil leaves is thus connected with the 

 extremely corroded appearance of the shale and sandstone. 



The most important of the coal-beds * occur in the upper part 

 of the strata at Kome ; but bands of coal are interstratified with the 

 shale in many other places. They are not very extensive, how- 

 ever, though sufficient to provide some Greenland households with 

 the few tons of coal they want in the year. At present, according 

 to the statement of the Governor of the Colony, coal is thus col- 

 lected, not only at Kome, but also at Sarfarfik, Pattorfik, Avkru- 

 sak, and, less frequently, at Ekkorfat. 



To this, or rather to a still more recent formation, belongs also 

 the remarkable layer of graphite at Karsok, and probably the layer 

 of graphite at Niakornet. One has to pass over a somewhat ex- 

 tensive tract of the subjacent gneiss before arriving at the sedimen- 

 tary strata, which appear, with a steep inclination, on the bank of 

 the Karsok River at a height of 840 feet. Afterwards, slopes of 

 basalt, boulders, gravel washed down from the mountains, &c., 

 continue, until, at a height of 1,150 feet, one arrives at a terrace 

 covered with gravel, in which a few angular pieces of graphite 

 may be discovered, and fragments of a hard sandstone impreg- 

 nated with coal. In consequence of the unfitness of our Green- 

 land assistants for real labour, our attempts to dig through the 

 strata of gravel and reach the graphite bed were unsuccessful ; 

 but we were informed by Capt. G. N. Brockdorff" — master of the 

 ship which, in 1850, was to have taken a cargo of graphite to 

 Europe, and which actually carried over about five tons of that 

 mineral — that the graphite here forms a horizontal bed eight to 

 ten inches thick, covered with clay, sand, and angular fragments of 

 sandstone. This interesting graphite bed does not contain any 

 organic remains ; but, as both the underlying Cretaceous strata 

 and the graphite lie horizontally and near each other, and the 

 latter is situated about 300 feet higher up [?], it is evident that 

 the Graphite at Karsok belongs either to the Cretaceous or to a 

 still later period. 



* As stated above, the coal-beds probably do not belong to the Lower ^ but 

 to the Upper Cretaceous (the Atane) beds. 



