PROF. NORDENSKIOlD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 437 



ness, but regularly stratified with a dip of about 10° towards the 

 north. 



Assakak. — Immediately south of Kome River, Noursoakland, 

 the coast consists of lofty gneiss rocks, between which a num- 

 ber of glaciers project. One of these, Assakak glacier, has 

 long been celebrated for the charred tree-stems lying scattered on 

 the surftice of the ice. The glacier itself does not reach down to 

 the sea, but is separated from the shore by a low foreland, 

 covered with boulders of gneiss, and passing without any discover- 

 able line of demarcation into the glacier, which is there also 

 itself covered with gravel. The gravel, however, here principally 

 consists of angular fragments of basalt, among which pieces of 

 charred wood may be here and there remarked. Higher up the 

 mass of charred or silicified wood increased considerably, and was 

 often piled together, as if by human hand. It was, however, easy 

 to satisfy oneself that this was not the case, but that the coal came 

 from some stratum in the neighbourhood of the glacier, on the 

 surface of which it now lay scattered, chiefly at a height estimated 

 by me at about 300 feet. The nearest high mountains surround- 

 ing the glacier seemed to consist of gneiss, hornblende-slate, etc. 

 A thick fog prevented us from seeing far inward, and induced us 

 to defer an excursion we had intended in that direction, which 

 probably, as far as the object of finding the stratum from which 

 the pieces of wood had come is concerned, would not have been 

 crowned with success. In fact, it is probable that the fragments 

 of wood belong to a Tertiary. stratum 5e^^e«^A the glacier. After 

 a careful search, pieces of clay and sandstone were found, con- 

 taining remnants of plants exactly similar to the fossils at Ifsori- 

 sok, whence I draw the conclusion, that the strata, whence the 

 coal has originated, were about contemporaneous with those of 

 Ifsorisok and Netluarsuk. 



The strata of this horizon are separated from the Lower 

 Miocene strata at Atanekerdluk by basalt-beds several thousand 

 feet thick, for the formation of which an immense lapse of 

 time must have been required ; and one would accordingly expect 

 to find here remains of a vegetation very diff'erent from the 

 Miocene vegetation of Atanekerdluk ; but this is not the case. 

 According to Professor Heer, the fossils in both these places have 

 a purely Miocene stamp. As evidence of this, Professor Heer 

 adduces the presence of Sequoia Langsdorfii, at Ifsorisok, and 

 that of Taxodium distichum, Glyptostrobus Europceus^ and 

 ChamcBcyparis Massiliensis at Netluarsak. 



IV. — The Sinnifik strata. 



At Godhavn the basalt rests immediately upon gneiss, but only 

 a little way to the east the eruptive rock reaches the sea-level ; 

 and in rowing hither along the southern shore of Disko, we pass 

 cliffs of basalt-tuff" and basalt, often (as, for example, at the 

 Brannvinshamnen) broken up in the most splendid manner into 

 hexagonal basalt columns, basalt grottoes, and basalt arches. On 

 the other side of Brededalen the basalt first begins to be inter- 

 stratified with sand and shale beds, which probably are the begin- 



