ch. xxxn] Franz Josef Land and its Explorers 295 
2000 to 3000 feet, and the predominating formation 
resembles the dolerite of Greenland, though coarser 
grained and of a dark yellowish-green colour. Payer 
also observed terraced beaches covered with debris con- 
taining organic remains. The small snow-covered islets 
reached by Nansen from the north are composed of a 
coarse-grained basalt. The western half of the Franz 
Josef group was more thoroughly explored by Jackson 
and Armitage, with the aid of their able and accomplished 
companions, during four summers and three winter 
seasons 1894-97. 
Dr Koettlitz, the geologist of Mr Jackson's expedition, 
from the results of three years of observation combined 
with the reports of Payer and Leigh Smith, has been 
able to give a fairly good general view of the past history 
and present appearance of the Franz Josef group. He 
looks upon the numerous islands as the fragments of an 
old table-land, doubtless connected with other lands 
from which it is now separated by wide seas, and he 
places the existence of this continental land in the Jurassic 
period. But the principal feature of the group, as was 
also observed by Payer, is the basalt or the dolerite of 
which the plateau formation consists. This basaltic 
rock formation is from 500 to 600 feet in perpendicular 
height, and Dr Koettlitz dates it from Jurassic times; 
in which case all strata that may have been laid down 
after this period have disappeared through denudation, 
or are buried under the ice sheets. When the hills were 
clothed with those plants of the Jurassic age which have 
been recognised among the fossils that have been brought 
home, the climate must have been mild and genial, and 
the land was connected with Spitsbergen. 
The present flora of Franz Josef Land is almost confined 
to terraces or slopes with a southern aspect, and is poor 
as compared with that of Spitsbergen. But it gives 
some little colouring to the dreary summer landscape, 
and in the neighbourhood of loomeries there are many 
bright-coloured mosses 1 . 
1 The Franz Josef flora includes the ubiquitous Saxifraga oppositifolia, 
Cardamine bellidifolia , Arenavia sulcata, Draba alpina, Cerastium alpinum, 
Papaver nudicaule, and Cochlearia fenestrata. A rare and beautiful grass' 
Pleuropogon sabinii, was also found, only previously known at Melville 
