UPERNIVIK ISLAND 87 
departure from the more permanent Settlement the 
roof of the winter house is removed and nature is 
left to do the much needed spring-cleaning and 
airing. My intention was to take a photograph of 
a typical, roofless house and three Eskimo women 
were invited by signs to come into the picture. 
Unfortunately, so far at least as the prospect of 
obtaining a satisfactory photograph of the building 
was concerned, the whole female population formed 
up in line (Fig. 39). 
From the beds of shale exposed in the cliffs in 
the foreground, shown in Fig. 40, above the beach 
littered with boulders, several impressions of fossil 
plants (Cretaceous) were collected, including many 
beautifully preserved leaves of Gixkgo (the Maiden- 
hair tree) and pieces of the large fronds of a Cycad, 
a plant related to the so-called Sago Palms, the 
majority of which flourish in the Tropics. An 
almost vertical dyke thrust through the old sedi- 
ments forms a prominent feature on the left. The 
two massive mountains in the distance are portions 
of the highlands bordering the western edge of 
the Umanak Fjord, composed of some of the oldest 
rocks in Greenland. 
On one part of the south coast of Upernivik 
Island the heterogeneous collection of boulders, 
which are the products of ice-action when the 
climatic conditions were more severe and the 
inland ice was greater in extent and glaciers were 
larger, presented interesting geological problems. 
A short distance from the Settlement on Uper- 
nivik Island the strata of sandstone and shale are 
