PROFESSOR HEER ON THE FOSSIL FLORA OF NORTH GREENLAND. 449 
4 Specific gravity . . . 
, 1-369 
Gaseous and volatile matter 
. . . 45-45 
Moisture 
. . . -75 
46-20 
Sulphur 
•55 
, (Fixed carbon . . . 
Coke Ash 
. . . 47-75 
. . . 5-50 
53-25 
100-00 
The lignite contains a trace of bitumen ; the coke is non-caking, and of little use.’ 
“ In this lignite we found small pieces of amber, the largest being about the size of a 
common pea. We also found amber, but in still smaller fragments, in the leaf-deposit 
itself. It was nowhere abundant. 
“ The scantiness of the living vegetation at Atanekerdluk offered a marked contrast 
to the luxuriance displayed in the leaf-deposit. Although this was the sunny side of 
the Waigat Strait and the hills were completely free from snow, vegetation was as 
meagre as upon Disco Island itself. The drifting of the sand accounts for this doubtless 
to some extent. The largest dead wood measured less than an inch and a half in dia- 
meter, and the largest growing wood less than an inch. 
“The most remarkable natural object at Atanekerdluk is a trap pinnacle*. The sur- 
rounding soil has been removed, leaving this portion of a former dyke standing perfectly 
isolated. Its height is about eighty feet.” 
Mr. Brown furnishes the following particulars as to the stratification of the rocksf . 
“ General stratification of the beds at Atanekerdluk . — A stream called Ekadluk (pro- 
bably connected with the name of the place) flows into the Waigat Strait here and ex- 
poses a section nearly to the summit of the cliff. This shows a series of beds dipping at 
an acute angle at various degrees to S., with a general strike E., all lying in general 
conformably on each other. These strata are divided into many distinct beds of sand- 
stone, conglomerate gritty sandstone, shales (clayey, splintery, and fissile), and all alter- 
nating with each other, and containing various seams of lignitic coal ; and towards the 
summit of the section thin cherty ironstone, with which you are most familiar as the 
matrix of the fossils. This ‘ ironstone’ I look upon merely as of the nature of a shale, 
hut owing its hardness and cuboidal fracture to being so impregnated with oxide (1) of 
iron ; accordingly we find it taking the place of a shale and alternating with the sand- 
stones and shales topping, and underlying the coal-beds shown in this section. 
“All of these beds (sandstones, shales, &c.) contain vegetable fossil impressions to a 
greater or less extent, but owing to their softness none of them here have retained them 
except the ironstone shales already referred to, and these impressions are only seen as 
indistinct charred looking blackenings. The greatest thickness of these sandstones is 
about 20 feet, and the beds of splintery shales occasionally reach that thickness, down 
to a thinness of a few inches. The fossil layers (the ironstone shale) never exceed from 
* A photograph of which, from a drawing taken on the spot, was exhibited, 
t In MS. notes furnished by Professor Heek. 
