438 PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 



nings of those vast sandy strata that meet us on both sides of the 

 entrance to the Waigat. 



Further on, at Puilasok and Sinnifik, the shore itself consists 

 of sandstone, with very thin shales, here and there interrupted 

 by basaltic cliffs, with a worn and smooth surface. The sand- 

 stone around the cliffs is not in appearance distinguishable 

 from the sand still heaped by the action of wind and wave 

 around the basalt rocks on the shore. Everything seems to show, 

 that in many places hereabouts,* we have before us sand-beds 

 deposited between basalt rocks. In this case these layers are 

 more recent than the whole basalt formation ; and the fossils they 

 contain, imbedded partly in an extremely brittle shale, partly 

 (at Sinnifik) in hard marl-nodules resembling those at Atane- 

 kerdluk, but not containing very much iron, are of interest as 

 indicating the limit of the period during which this tract was 

 the scene of the vast volcanic eruptions which have given rise to 

 the basaltic masses of North-west Greenland. These fossils con- 

 sist, at Puilasok, of fragments of leaves of broad-leaved trees 

 {Salix, Myrica, Plantanus aceroides, Cratcegus antiqua^ etc.) ; 

 at Sinnifik, of leaves of both broad-leaved trees and Coniferai 

 {Sequoia Langsdorjii, Taxites Olrikii, Populus arctica), and, 

 according to Heer, bear constant witness to a Miocene, perhaps 

 an Upper-Miocene epoch. If this be so, the volcanic agency in 

 these parts commenced during the Cretaceous and terminated pre- 

 viously to the close of the Miocene period. The basalt-beds in 

 the Cretaceous and Lower (Greenland) Miocene are, however, 

 quite trifling in comparison with those which cover the Miocene 

 deposits at ^Atanekerdluk, Ujarasusuk, Isungoak, etc. Accord- 

 ingly in these (Greenland) districts the volcanic action attained 

 its greatest intensity in the Middle Miocene. 



During our involuntary stay at Godhavn, I made an excursion, 

 in company with some comrades, in a boat manned by Green - 

 landers, to the spot whence the Rudolph meteoric iron was 

 supposed to have been taken, namely, the old whaling-station of 

 Fortune Bay, in the neighbourhood of Godhavn. On arriving 

 there, I ordered the Greenlanders to look after heavy, round, 

 rusty-brown sto?ies, which I knew would certainly be found 

 someiohere thereabout. It was in vain. No meteoric stones, or 

 rather pieces of meteoric iron, were on this occasion found ; but 

 before leaving the spot I again repeated to the Greenlanders, 

 that pieces of iron of the nature described were most unquestionably 

 to be met with somewhere in that neighbourhood, and I promised 

 them a reward, if they could discover them, against my return 

 in the autumn. 



When, at the end of August, we returned from Omenak to 

 Godhavn, one of the Greenlanders communicated to me, with many 

 l>vely gestures to express their size, shape, etc., that they had 



* In this neighbourhood we even meet with sand seams beneath basalt. 



