50 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS, 



pelled by necessity to remain behind. We found, in truth, an axe, a 

 saw, a barrel of quass or small-beer, along with ia store of salt, dried 

 fish, meal, and salted sea-fowl {Alca arctica). I immediately pro- 

 ceeded to examine the more elevated south side of the island, and 

 followed the eastern shore. Even in the vicinity of Nordhafen, I saw 

 in a precipice certainly more than 200 feet high, four beds of coal, 

 running between the strata of fine-grained grey sandstone, but none 

 of these beds was above an ell (two feet) thick. Hence in a situation 

 so unfavourable for workmg, they can never become of any economical 

 importance." Even Bennet in his time knew of this coal and brought 

 some of it with him to England. At the same time he collected on 

 Gull Island, near Nordhafen, a quantity of galena, and thus procured 

 for Bear Island the reputation of great mineral wealth. Yet the Nor- 

 wegian sailors from Hammerfest, who are well-acquainted with the 

 whole island, look in vain for Gull Island. They either altogether 

 deny its existence, or assert that it must have been destroyed by the 

 waves. Farther to the east a small stream falls into the sea, named 

 Engelsk Elv, from the graves of some Englishmen at its mouth. In 



A 



Mount Misery. 



that place two beds of coal again appear, running as before perfectly 

 horizontal along the cliff. The harder beds of sandstone project from 

 the precipice, and extend like steps one above the other for a great 

 distance. They form the abode of whole hosts of sea-fowl, which 

 here lay their eggs and bring out their young. This perfect horizon- 

 tality of the beds over the whole island is a very remarkable and 

 striking phsenomenon. Even the common sailors remark, that they 

 are constantly sailing over the horizontal foundation of Bear Island, 

 when proceeding from this place to Hope Island, or even further to 

 the Archipelago of the Thousand Isles near Spitzbergen, a portion of 

 the Arctic Ocean, which has everywhere only a very moderate depth. 

 Even on the mountains of East Spitzbergen the same horizontality is 

 maintained, as Keilhau has himself observed and represented in his 

 work ; a proof of the great distance of these beds from the destroying 

 and elevating action of the granite and gneiss mountains. And as 

 Keilhau has found that on Stans Foreland, hyperite or hypersthene 

 rock (basalt of Keilhau) forms the foundation of all the other beds. 



