. Discovery. Science. 270 DISCOVERY hundred miles before they melt or come to rest on the shore of Newfoundland or e\'en farther south, breaking up like ships aground. The fossil-bearing rocks it was our aim to investigate during the summer of 1921 are exposed along the shore and in the ravines of Disko and other islands, and especially on the Nugssuaq peninsula. Most of. A VII'.W XHAR CODIlAi . Showiag part oi the high basaltic plateau of horizontal beds of lava and ash and. below the suow-covered talus slopes, the darker hummocks of ,\rchjeaa gneiss; grasses on the sandy beach in the foregro
. Discovery. Science. 270 DISCOVERY hundred miles before they melt or come to rest on the shore of Newfoundland or e\'en farther south, breaking up like ships aground. The fossil-bearing rocks it was our aim to investigate during the summer of 1921 are exposed along the shore and in the ravines of Disko and other islands, and especially on the Nugssuaq peninsula. Most of. A VII'.W XHAR CODIlAi . Showiag part oi the high basaltic plateau of horizontal beds of lava and ash and. below the suow-covered talus slopes, the darker hummocks of ,\rchjeaa gneiss; grasses on the sandy beach in the foreground. them were deposited during the Cretaceous period ; others are Tertiary in age.^ Slabs of rock detached with the aid of a pickaxe from the side of a ravine where the hills are made of a succession of sheets of sediment—the sands and muds of some ancient lake or lagoon—are found to be covered with the clearly outlined impressions of large leaves like those of the Plane or Tulip tree, fronds of ferns hardly distinguish- able from species (of the genus Gleichenia) living to-day in tropical and sub-tropical countries, twigs and cones of Conifers, some of which are almost identical with those of the Mammoth tree (Sequoia gigantea) now confined to a narrow strip of the Californian coasts, and massive stems of forest trees. None of the leaves preserved in the Greenland rocks have a greater fascination for the student of the past history of living plants than those of the genus Ginkgo. This genus is now represented by a single species, the Maidenhair tree (Ginkgo hiloba), which is sometimes said to occur in a wild state in China, though it is probable that even in China and Japan, where it grows abundantly, it exists only as a cultivated tree associated in the Oriental mind with some religious symbolism. Some of these fossil leaves are indis- tinguishable from those of the sole survivor of this ancient genus at several localities within the Arctic Circle as in many other region
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