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353

depression of the Greenland Coast
S of [Kingatok?] (see note Book) is in interesting
keeping with the same undulating alternation
on the Scandinavian side. Certainly
there seems to be in the localities
of these upheaved & depressed areas
a systematic compensation.

I counted to day 41 distinct ledges
or shelves of terrace embraced between
the Syenitic ridges & through which [Mary?]
river forces itself & and our water
line. These shelves, though sometimes
merged into each other, presented distinct
and recognizable embankments of escarps
of elevation, their surfaces were at a
nearly uniform inclination of descent of
5°, and their breadth, either twelve
twenty four, thirty six or some other
multiple [of a mean [blank] ] of twelve
paces. This imposing series of ledges
carried you in 41 gigantic steps to
an elevation, by aneroid, of 480 feet;
and as the first rudiments of these
ancient beaches left the granites which
had once formed the barrier sea coast
you could trace them passing from drift
strewn rocky barricades to clearly
defined and gracefully curved shelves
of shingle & pebbles.

We saw Boulder deposits on a grand scale
[was seen] ten miles from our brig, say seven
from the coast, at an altitude of eleven
hundred feet [and here] a mass of
rounded Syenite, entirely isolated, [was
found lying] upon coast [?] sandstone shale,
(slates), [which] of which the cubical contents could not
have been less than sixty tons.

Tired as I am by this hard walk I feel
that it has rewarded me well [was full of instruction]. [Although] It was too cold for

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