^{page 121 note 1} Some univalves and fragments of fossil wood found in the Tertiary strata at Cape Staratschin are described by Mayer in Oswald Heer's Miocene Flora and Fauna von Spitsbergen, and are considered, at least partly, to belong to marine types. The broken and fragmentary condition of these fossils and their occurrence, the vegetable fragments included, in a stratum, merely local, of one or two inches thick, imbedded among purely fresh-water forms, however, shows that they do not lie in situ, but have been washed out of some older marine stratum.

^{page 121 note 2} Some ill-preserved vegetable impressions (pieces of Cycadea) were brought home from this locality during the Expedition of 1864, although they have not been subjected to a close examination. As at that time Miocene Coal-seams only were known to occur at Spitzbergen, I referred these strata in my sketch of the geology of Spitzbergen to the Tertiary period.

^{page 122 note 1} In my sketch of the geology of Spitzbergen I have noticed the plutonic rocks plentifully occurring in these regions under the name of hyperite. According to later microscopical examinations of the rock, this name ought to be exchanged for diabase.

^{page 123 note 1} In quoting these analyses von Drasche gives utterance to a doubt of the correct-ness of Lindström's determination of titanic acid in the addendum: “Wie leicht kann ein durch Fluss-säure noch nicht, ganz aufgeschlossener Theil des Silikates als Titansäure gewogen werden.” This doubt is unwarranted, and perhaps shows why Teclu only found a trace of titanic acid. Small quantities of titanic acid are not obtained in the way stated by Herr von Drasche, because the acid passes into the solution. In the analysis made by Lindström at the laboratory for mineral analysis at the Eiks Museum, the titanic acid was precipitated by boiling and the pecipitated acid was forced from iron by means of acetic acid and hydrosulphate of ammonia.

^{page 123 note 2} Among the pebbles on the north-east side of North-East Land I found some pieces of Chalcedony, whose form clearly showed that they had been formed in cavities of basalt. This is considered to prove that such rocks occur on the groups of islands north-east of Spitzbergen. Perhaps it was in these regions that the eruptions took place from which the Spitzbergen diabase beds originated. According to Keilhau, pebbles with cavities also occur on Stansforeland.

^{page 124 note 1} The transverse clefts which often divide the basaltic columns seem to arise from an interruption in the successive contraction, caused, for instance, by infiltration of water in the solid but yet warm rock.

^{page 125 note 1} Such strata of diabase sand also now occur in many places on the coasts of Spitzbergen; for example, in Hinloopen, off the Low Island, etc.

^{page 125 note 2} I have before given expression to the view that the condition of a rock depends much more on the composition of the original materials than on the mode of occurrence, and that a volcanic glass and a sediment of the same chemical composition, after the lapse of immense periods of geological time, give the same ultimate product, inasmuch as the molecules arrange themselves according to the most favourable relation of equivalents; and as an instance showing that molecular changes may take place in solid substances, I may point to iodide of silver, to the changes produced in the form of sulphur crystals, and to iron which has been exposed for a length of time to concussions (for instance, axles of railway waggons). I have obtained besides two geological examples of such changes. The first I got from the distinguished chemist Gentele, who, without knowing that he was contributing to the solution of a disputed point of great importance in geology, some few years ago, sent to the Riks Museum a box of common light grey malakolite, on account of the extraordinary circumstance that the mineral when removed by blasting from the mountain was amorphous, but soon after began to assume a coarsely crystalline structure. The other was communicated to me by A. G. Nathorst, Docent in Geology at the University of Lund, whose attention, when he took part last summer in the geological survey of Sweden, was directed by a farmer to a vein of calcspar which had undergone a change of texture from a compact to a crystalline state during a period of 25 to 30 year. I have wished to quote these cases so much the more because there is no possibility that the observers have been led astray by a theoretic view previously adopted. Those who are disposed to deny the possibility of a mass of the nature of tufa being changed to a crystalline rock, ought besides to keep in view that, according to all experience, a melted mass of silica cools to a glass, and that therefore for the purely eruptive diabase we also must suppose that an inward molecular change did take place after the solidification of the rock.