PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 431 



Fig. 10 shows the succession in the lower portion of the 

 section seen at Atanekerdluk. The mass of the formation in 

 this lower slope consists of very fine black shale {a), resembling 

 the shale at Cape Starastschin, in Spitzbergen, containing a 

 quantity of plant-remains, which, however, it is very difficult to 

 preserve, in consequence of the brittleness of the shale. There 

 are no marine fossils whatever here, so that it is evidently a 

 freshwater formation. 



At Atane the adjoining cliffs nearest to the water's edge are 

 concealed by stone and gravel, consisting partly of sandstone and 

 partly of basalt and basalt-breccia containing zeolite. Over these 

 we have : 



At 450 feet, horizontal strata of hard sandstone. 

 At 600 feet, shale, which soon alternates with sandstone. 

 At 650 feet, a thick coal-bed resting upon fine shale, with im- 

 pressions of Plants (Upper Cretaceous) and particles of resin. 

 Then again shale, often interstratified with coal-beds of con- 

 siderable thickness. 

 At 900 feet, a coal-bed two feet thick, from which, on the side 

 left bare by the ravine a white salt has fretted out (sulphate 

 of alumina). On this is a sandstone 50 feet thick, then shale, 

 and over that sandstone again, and lastly basalt. 



On the fossils from these places Professor Heer remarks : " The 

 fossils from the lower strata at Atanekerdluk belong probably to 

 the Upper Cretaceous. This appears from : — 



" 1. The presence of a remarkable CyG&d (C?/cadites Dicksoni). 

 It is true that this is not altogether consistent with the suppo- 

 sition that these impressions belong to the Eocene formation [ ?] ; 

 but at any rate no Cycad, and especially no Cycadites, has hitherto 

 been found in strata belonging to the Eocene epoch. 



" 2. The frequent occurrence of Ferns. 



** 3. The occurrence of a Sequoia scarcely distinguishable from 

 Sequoia Reichenbachii ; 



" 4. And of a Credneria, of which, however, only fragments 

 are before us. 



" On the other hand, this Flora differs entirely from that at 

 Kome, especially by the presence of pretty numerous dicotyle- 

 donous leaves, which are, moreover, quite unlike the Greenland 

 Miocene plants. The investigation of these fossils presents 

 serious difficulties, as the greater part of them are those of full- 

 bordered leaves with a complicated nervation offering but few 

 fixed points of discrimination. One leaf seems to agree with 

 Magnolia alternans, Heer, from the Upper Cretaceous of 

 Nebraska. 



" These dicotyledonous leaves indicate the Upper Cretaceous 

 formation, but to which of its sub-divisions the lower strata at 

 Atanekerdluk are to be assigned can only be determined by a 

 closer investigation. This new flora is, at any rate, one of the 

 greatest discoveries of the Expedition of 1870, opening, as it does, 

 for North Greenland an entirely new geological horizon, which 

 shows that in the Arctic regions, as in Europe, Dicotyledonous 



