406 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[ghap. 
interior of the island, the coal mine on its north side. At the 
time of our visit the coal company had recently gone into 
liquidation, and work had therefore been stopped at the mine, 
but it was hoped that it would soon be resumed. The sandy 
plain is of little fertility in comparison with the neighbouring 
tropical lands. It had recently been burned, and was therefore 
for the most part covered only with bushes, among which stems 
of high, dried-up, half-burned trees raised themselves, giving to 
the landscape a resemblance to a northern forest devastated by 
an accidental fire. In consequence of the fire which had thus 
passed over the island the plain which, when looked at from a 
distance appeared to be completely even, was seen everywhere 
to be studded with crater-formed depressions in the sand, quite 
similar to the os-pits in the osar of Scandinavia.^ On the north 
side there was sandstone rock rising from the sea with a steep 
slope six to fifteen metres high. Here tropical nature appeared 
in all its luxuriance, principally in the valleys which the small 
streams had excavated in the sandstone strata. 
The coal mine is sunk on coal-seams, which come to the surface 
on the north side of the island. The seams, according to the 
information I received on the spot, are four in number, with a 
thickness of 3’3, 0'9, 0'4 and I‘0 metre. They dip at an angle 
of 30° towards the horizon, and are separated from each other by 
strata of clay and hard sandstone, which together have a thickness 
of about fifty metres. Above the uppermost coal-seam there are 
besides very thick strata of black clay-slate, white hard sandstone 
with bands of clay, loose sandstone, sandstone mixed with coal, 
and finally considerable layers of clay-slate and sandstone, which 
contain fossil marine Crustacea, resembling those of the present 
time. The strata which lie between or in the immediate 
neighbourhood of the coal seams do not contain any other fossils 
than those vegetable remains, which are to be described farther 
1 Concerning- their formation and origin see a paper by K. Nordenskiold 
in OfversKjt af Vet.-ahad. FdrJi. 1870, p. 29. 
