Payer describes the lands seen from Austria Sound as covered with fields of ice, while rows of basaltic columns, rising tier above tier, stand out as if crystallized, but the natural colour of the rock is not visible, even the steepest walls of rock being covered with ice. The mountains are table-shaped and rise to heights of from 2000 to 3000 feet, and the predominating formation resembles the dolerite of Greenland, though coarser grained and of a dark yellowish-green colour. Payer also observed terraced beaches covered with débris containing organic remains. The small snow-covered islets reached by Nansen from the north are composed of a coarse-grained basalt. The western half of the Franz Josef group was more thoroughly explored by Jackson and Armitage, with the aid of their able and accomplished companions, during four summers and three winter seasons 1894–97. Dr Koettlitz, the geologist of Mr Jackson’s expedition, from the results of three years of observation combined with the reports of Payer and Leigh Smith, has been able to give a fairly good general view of the past history and present appearance of the Franz Josef group. He looks upon the numerous islands as the fragments of an old table-land, doubtless connected with other lands from which it is now separated by wide seas, and he places the existence of this continental land in the Jurassic period. But the principal feature of the group, as was also observed by Payer, is the basalt or the dolerite of which the plateau formation consists. This basaltic rock formation is from 500 to 600 feet in perpendicular height, and Dr Koettlitz dates it from Jurassic times; in which case all strata that may have been laid down after this period have disappeared through denudation, or are buried under the ice sheets. When the hills were clothed with those plants of the Jurassic age which have been recognised among the fossils that have been brought home, the climate must have been mild and genial, and the land was connected with Spitsbergen. The present flora of Franz Josef Land is almost confined to terraces or slopes with a southern aspect, and is poor as compared with that of Spitsbergen. But it gives some little colouring to the dreary summer landscape, and in the neighbourhood of loomeries there are many bright-coloured mosses[141]. There are very few mammals on these desolate islands. Polar bears, however, frequent the neighbouring floes in considerable numbers, and wander about all the winter. The Austrians shot over 60, Nansen 19, and 120 were seen by the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition. The Arctic hare was not met with, and foxes were very rarely seen at “Elmwood,” though they made themselves at home at Nansen’s winter quarters. Bones and antlers of deer were found on the raised beaches, and it is not easy to account for their presence. They might possibly have come with drift-wood. White whales, narwhals, and three kinds of seals were seen, and walruses were abundant[142].