434 PROF. NORDENSKIOlD, expedition to GREENLAND. 



Fig. 



11. — Bituminised tree trunk at 

 Atanekerdluk. 



this spot, trunks of trees, the tops of which rise above the sand, 

 or form black spots in the white sand. An excavation Avas made 

 in our presence, and we saw, as the annexed woodcut indi- 

 cates, the roots branch out in an underlying clay-bed. There 



can, therefore, be no doubt 

 Fig. 11. that these trunks once grew 



in the place where they are 

 now found. Above these 

 strata is sand, then a thick 

 stratum of basalt, over which 

 sand again, and lastly a 

 basalt bed, perhaps 2,000 

 feet thick, and, as far as one 

 can judge from a distance, 

 not interstratified with layers 

 of sand or shale. 



At Atanekerdluk itself the 

 strata follow the direction of 

 the strait (or, more correctly 

 speaking, strike true N.N.VV. 

 S.S.E.*), and the slope, as 

 indicated in the following sections, taken from a ravine the direc- 

 tion of which was at right angles to the shore, is 8°-32° E.N.E. 

 Further up in the strait the strata gradually sink, so that the 

 capping of basalt reaches down to the surface of the sea a little 

 north of Atane. The perturbations at Atanekerdluk, therefore, 

 seem to have been only local ; and, on the whole, the strata may 

 be said to lie nearly horizontal, with a slight dip to N.W. 



This Miocene formation has evidently in former times extended 

 completely over the Waigat to Disko Isle, at the south-east angle 

 of which it attains its greatest thickness. One may here see from 

 the sea sandhills of 2,000 or 3,000 feet high, often, but not always, 

 containing basalt-beds. The chief substance of the mountain 

 consists of vast horizontal sand-beds, interstratified with thinnish 

 beds of clay, and occasional horizontal coal-bands, with carbonised 

 stems of trees, sometimes in their original position and of consi- 

 derable size. A stem of this kind, two feet in diameter, was, for 

 example, seen in a rock in the district about Mudderbugten. The 

 quantity of carbonised stems is often so great that the Green- 

 landers collect and use them as fuel. Silicified tree-stems are also 

 met with, though more rarely. The greatest number of impres- 

 sions of leaves occur, both on the western shore of the Waigat, 

 and at Atanekerdluk, almost invariably in a hard, grey, ferruginous 

 clay-rock turning red by exposure to the atmosphere (" Atane- 

 kerdlukstone "), which forms either peculiar beds, one or two 

 inches thick and a few fathoms in extent, or lenticular masses 

 in sand or clay, or small balls in huge, almost spherical sandstone 



* Mean of several observations made in the ravine along the side of which 

 I ascended the slope. Brown gives E. and W. as the direction. The difference 

 probably arises from the circumstance that the magnetic perturbations at 

 Ataaekerdlak are of a local nature, and thus different in different ravines. 



