DALY : GEOLOGY OF THE NORTHEAST COAST OF LABRADOR. 247 



it is true that the serrateness of the Torngats is real and extensively 

 developed, it will be well to present the evidence now in hand, which 

 shows that, above a certain relatively low line, the range was, during 

 the last advance of the great ice-sheet, not covered by a glacial mantle 

 differing in any important way from the snow-blanket which overlies the 

 country during the present winters. 



It is important to note that the discussion of the question will refer 

 simply to the last advance of the ice. Until it has been determined 

 whether there was once an interglacial period in Labrador corresponding 

 to that recorded in the United States and southern Canada, we cannot 

 be sure that a glacial topography, developed during the first advance, 

 was not destroyed during interglacial time and during the time occupied 

 in the secoud advance. It seems probable that the interglacial interval 

 was longer near the zone of great terminal moraines than in Canada. 

 Still further north the ice may have lain on the country throughout the 

 whole glacial epoch. On the other hand, the Torngats may hold 

 exactly the same relation to the rest of the peninsula as that of the 

 Lofoden Islands to the Scandinavian mainland. An Alpine relief char- 

 acterizes the island group to-day, although the ice-cap of the first glacial 

 advance ran over the group far out into the Atlantic. 



The first attempt to solve the problem was made on the slopes of Mt. 

 Ford. Ascending the mountain on the west side, typical roches mouton- 

 nees and undoubted erratics cease at the sixteen hundred-foot contour. 

 Above this, to the summit, the slope is one continuous Felsenmeer. 

 Although unremitting search was carried on during the ascent, not a 

 single erratic piece of rock was discovered above the contour mentioned. 

 The creeping, frost-driven and snow-driven, fragments of ferruginous 

 gneisses, trap, vein quartz, and syenite were found to be universally 

 sharp-cornered, never subangular, and always deeply weathered. The 

 few ledges protruding through the Felsenmeer were likewise profoundly 

 affected by frost and general weathering, and nowhere presented the 

 familiar smooth surface of a glaciated nubble of rock. While these 

 contrasts between the Felsenmeer fragments and decayed ledges above 

 and the fresh subangular erratics and roches moutonnees less than five 

 hundred feet below, were very marked, there yet remained the possibility 

 that the Felsenmeer really covered well glaciated bed-rock over which 

 the rock fragments have streamed in postglacial times. The rarity of 

 the ledges between sixteen hundred feet and the summit was such as 

 not to permit of a satisfactory conclusion based on the study of this one 

 mountain-slope. On the south side, where the descent of Mt. Ford was 



