THE ROCKS OF DISKO ISLAND 79 
in the photograph, are the hills of the mainland 
showing a strip of white against the sky where a 
depression in the coast-line reveals the edge of 
the inland ice. The dyke shown in profile on the 
edge of the sandstone slope in Fig. 36 is seen at 
close quarters in Fig. 37; it resembles a partially 
ruined, rusty brown wall ona wind-worn, denuded 
field of sand, the result of disintegration of beds 
of soft sandstone. Here and there, adhering to the 
sides of the dyke, are blocks of sandstone which 
were hardened and rendered more resistent to 
denuding agents by contact with the molten rock 
which welled up against their fissured sides. 
For the most part the sandstones and shales are 
light yellow or dark grey in colour, but in some 
places the same beds exposed on the scarps of the 
hills are bright red, while others simulate yellow- 
white porcelain with clearly defined impressions or 
moulds of leaves and twigs. These red and yellow- 
ish white rocks, which ring under the hammer, 
owe their colour and texture to burning. They are 
sandstones and shales altered in all probability as 
the result of some spontaneous combustion. 
Standing on the slopes of the hills one looks 
across from the south shore of the Naigssuaq Pen- 
insula to the mountains of Disko Island on the 
other side of the Vaigat—a distance of eight or ten 
miles though in the clear atmosphere it seems 
much less—the foot-hills with screes and talus- 
slopes surmounted by volcanic rocks, lines or 
patches of snow picking out the layered succession 
of lava-flow and ash. The identity in geological 
