NO. 2.] GEOLOGICAL SKETCH BY NANSEN. 



15 



and crumbling, there was a horizontal bed of clay 3 feet thick. In this bed 

 I found no fossils and no hard stone-nodules^. 



Under it there was an apparently almost horizontal layer of amygdaloidal 

 basalt (of lava-structure), 6 feet thick. This basalt bed could only be traced 

 for a short distance — I should say some twenty metres — across the ex- 

 posure, as it was completely hidden by the debris of the talus on both sides. 

 It did not give the impression of being intrusive, and this especially on account 

 of its amygdaloidal, lava-Hke structure; moreover there was absolutely no 

 indication of any alteration by heat, nor was any ordinary contact-metamorphosis 

 to be detected in the clay strata, either underneath or above this basalt bed. 

 It is also improbable that an intrusive mass would be able to extend itself 

 in such a thin and regular horizontal layer in soft clay. Intrusive masses 

 extending themselves in soft rocks generally take very irregular shapes even 

 in much harder strata than this clay (e. g. in the alum-schists of Ghristiania). 

 Judging from its structure under the microscope, Prof. Bragger concludes that 

 this basalt is probably not intrusive. 



Below this basalt, the clay-beds again occurred, and I believe they occupy 

 without interruption the entire height between this horizon and the sea-level. 

 In these clay beds, and only some short distance below the lowest basalt 

 bed, we found, in situ and embedded in the clay, both fossils and rounded 

 stone-nodules^, in which also fossils occurred. A good many more loose 

 fossils, as well as stone-nodules, with fossils in them, were found just below, 

 lying loose in a water-course that intersected these strata. They had evidently 

 been washed by the water out of the strata above, where fossils and stone- 

 nodules were found in situ. They were also of the same kind, but may of 

 course belong to somewhat different horizons. 



It is this place which Koettlitz describes as follows: „ Directly behind the 

 settlement of Elmwood, and within about 50 feet of the basalt, clay-beds with 



' Attention may liere be called to the fact that only V4 mile (English) north-west of this 

 point, Koettlitz found a piece of Amtnonites Laniberti embedded in the lower part of 

 the decomposed basalt (1. c, 1898, p. 638; see also Newton and Teall 1. c. 1898, p. 649) 

 immediately overlying the clay bed which is probably of exactly the same horizon. 



^ According to Pompeckj, these nodules consist partly of clay-sandstone partly of 

 grey-blue, grey or yellow calcareous clay, in hard (partly concretionary) pieces, etc. 

 (see below chap. II). It should be understood that these pieces are all of them only 

 fragments of originally rounded nodules. 



