No. 1] GEOGNOSTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 535 



less inclined to the horizon, the mean angle considerably exceeding 45o. 

 Their dip was sometimes to the east, sometimes to the west. 



These rocks exhibited the same varieties of structure, that they do in other 

 extensive tracts of country. In general, the slaty structure was parallel to the 

 direction of the strata, as in gneiss, mica-slate, clay-slate, &c. When the waved 

 structure made its appearance, it was sometimes conformable with the seams 

 of stratification, as was very often noticed in the transition clay-slate of the 

 Copper- Mine River ; or it was entirely independent of these, and then it was 

 very irregular in its direction. The apparently -confused arrangements of struc- 

 ture of clay-slate and other slaty rocks, more particularly observed at the mag- 

 netic islet in Knee Lake, and onToint Lake, proved, on a more extended and 

 accurate examination, to be caused by the arrangement of the mass of strata into 

 variously -formed distinct concretions, in many of which the direction of the slaty 

 structure was under very different angles, and in very different directions. In 

 short, in these apparently-disturbed strata we had, though on a great scale, the 

 same beautiful arrangement that occurs in the rock named by Werner, * ' Topaz 

 Rock." Independent of these various structures observable in individual strata, 

 we remarked that the strata themselves, whatever their structure might be, 

 were either variously waved or quite straight in their direction. 



The general forms, connexions, and distributions of the mountains, hills, and 

 plains, in the tracts we traversed, and of the cliffs on the coast of the Arctic Sea, 

 were nearly the same that geologists have remarked as characterizing similar 

 rocks, similarly circumstanced in other quarters of the globe. 



Granite with sienite, gneiss, mica-slate, and clay-slate, which some geologists 

 consider to be the predominating primitive rocks, occur in all their usual rela- 

 tions ; of these the gneiss appears to be the most extensively distributed, and to 

 be always attended with a very scanty vegetation. Granite is the next in fre- 

 quency, then mica-slate, and the least abundant are the clay-slate and protogine. 

 The granite is generally of a red colour, and varies from coarse to small gra- 

 nular. The loose blocks of stone, which crown the summits of almost all the 

 hills in the Barren Grounds, are generally of this latter variety. Of the gneiss 

 there are two varieties, the one red and the other grey. The mica-slate, clay- 

 slate, and sienite, present the common varieties. The protogine granite, of 

 which there is considerable abundance in Slave River, and in some other quar- 

 ters, appears to belong to the mica-slate formations. 



