t 
FOSSILIFEROUS LOCALITIES—SOUTH SHORE. 359 
terranes are a body of brecciated pre-Cretaceous basalt, extending to a 
considerable height to the left of the ancient houseplace, and a series of 
buff sandstones, with thin gray or creamy, more or less laminated and 
carbonaceous shales. In irregular areas the latter are reddened and 
hardened, as well as de-carbonized, being the ‘‘ burnt shales” described 
by the Danish geologists. The sedimentaries attain an elevation of 2,180 
feet above tide, where the vertical walls of Tertiary basalt continue over 
1,000 feet higher. 
The general lithological characters appear to differ little from those of 
the Kome or Atane series on the north side of the peninsula, the only 
observed difference being the frequent local occurrence of the red shales, 
whose peculiar character is secondary, and a slight increase in the num- 
ber of sandstones. 
About a mile and one-half west of the houseplace a knob of “ red- 
burned shales” rises from tide level west of the brecciated basalt, and is 
flanked by basaltic and other talus. Here, in the thin, fissile. brittle, 
and ringing shales, numerous casts of marine invertebrates and, rarely, 
fragments of plants are found. Nearer the houseplace, at an elevation 
of about 250 feet above tide appear buff or slightly yellowish thin sand- 
stones and laminated shales with poor dicotyledonous leaves and occa- 
sional shells. At the same horizon farther east the sediments are altered 
to a brick red. Above this the slope of the coast is mostly concealed by 
basalt talus to an elevation of 1,400 feet, when coaly or smutty sandy 
shales, thin buff sandstones, and conglomeratic strata, rarely containing 
plant and invertebrate remains, continue to an altitude of 2,000 feet above 
tide. Above the latter are about 180 feet of arenaceous beds capped by the 
Tertiary basalt. The latter dips slightly to the west. It may be noted in 
this connection that the character of the sediments below the basalt cap 
varies considerably. In places heavy cream colored sandstones, or thin 
shaly sandstones, or carbonaceous shales, often appearing to have been 
burned red, underlie the basalt. while at Patoot and Atanikerdluk one or 
more masses of considerable thickness of basalt are interbedded. Some 
distance east of the houseplace at Ata the shales descending to tide level 
are “burned,” and sparingly contain leaves and invertebrates. Still 
further east, at Kugsinersuak, the thin sandstones and shales are not 
altered at the mouth of the river gorge, although the same beds along the 
sea front, perhaps less than 100 yards distant, are thoroughly reddened 
_or leached, the shales brittle and ringing.* 
*Steenstrup (Meddelelser, v, 1893, pp. 63, 64; Heer, Fl. Foss. Arct., vii, pp. 164, 165, 240, 241) is 
perhaps correct in regarding the red ringing brittle shales in the vicinity of Patoot as mainly due 
to baking, since in rare cases these red areas are near dikes or outflows of Tertiary basalt. How- 
ever, in several areas where red shales are found there are no visible dikes, and the shales have 
possibly attained their red color by oxidation. 
LIiti—But.. Geox. Soc. Am., Vou. 9, 1897 
