408 
MINERALOGY. 
[AIT. N°. I, 
dered as occurring in most extensive tracts of country, and 
that, therefore, the scries is to be associated with the uni¬ 
versal formations. We do not know of any example of 
transition rocks having been met with in so high a latitude. 
3. Secondary Rocks. 
The secondary rocks, as appears from the preceding enu¬ 
meration, seem to be distributed into at least two forma¬ 
tions, viz. the Coal Formation, and the Secondary Trap 
and Porphyry Formation. 
1. Coal Formation. —Giesecke does not mention the coal 
formation, and therefore it is now for the first time enumera¬ 
ted amongst the rock formations of Greenland. It exhibits 
the same characters in Greenland as in Europe, and other 
quarters of the globe, and its prevalence in Jameson’s 
Land is that which gives tliis great tract of country its pe¬ 
culiar characters, ( vide page 191.), thus affording another 
example of the connection of the general and particular 
forms of the surface of a country, with its geognostical 
structure and composition. From this series of rocks al¬ 
ways containing numerous remains, more or less mineral¬ 
ised, of plants, many of which have a tropical aspect, its 
occurrence in this liigh northern latitude, in this region of 
snow and ice, becomes particularly interesting. The coal 
formation in Melville Island, where the summer lasts but a 
few weeks, I found, on examining a series of specimens, to 
contain various tropical looking fossil plants, resembling 
those met with in the coal-fields in this country ; and, as 
the same formation occurs in the high latitude of Jameson’s 
Land, it is very probable that future naturalists will de¬ 
tect ip its strata fossil remains of plants of a similar nature. 
