DALY: GEOLOGY OF THE NOETHEAST COAST OF LABRADOR. 257 



upper zone since emergence had taken place. Greater care had to be 

 exercised with slopes covered with streaming drift. In such cases, 

 masses of clay, small rock-fragments, and boulders compose small tongues 

 or scalloped terraces, the forms assumed by these materials as they are 

 washed each year farther and farther down the hill-side. Similar terraces 

 were photographed in Alaska by members of the Harriman Expedition. 



Between landing-places, a tolerably good idea of the altitude of the 

 highest shore-line could sometimes be attained. The treeless nature of 

 the headlands caused the boulders of the upper zone to stand out with 

 great clearness in the different profiles of the hills. As our schooner 

 hugged the shore pretty closely on the northward, or "downward" 

 journey, the line could often be located within an error often or twenty 

 feet. If by good fortune, the cairn of a triangulation station were also 

 in the view, it was often possible to secure quite useful information con- 

 cerning the line. A difficulty in using the cairns was, however, found 

 along the northern half of the coast. Not only are the charts of that 

 section very incomplete and inaccurate ; it was often not possible to 

 distinguish the Admiralty cairns from those erected in great numbers 

 •by the Eskimo on prominent hills, — the " American men " of the 

 fishermen. 



Finally, it is worth noting that the boulder-limit does not exactly 

 represent the actual former level of the sea, which will be a few feet be- 

 low the limit. The ancient waves would have an effective reach for 

 some distance above high-water mark. 



Table III. summarizes the results of the observations on the highest 

 shore-line. At most of the landing-places the land was high enough to 

 show the line. At others, all the hills ascended were found to be clean 

 swept. (Plate 8.) For each of the latter the elevation of the highest 

 hill is given in the table. There also appear the estimated heights of 

 the line determined from the schooner on islands and headlands sur- 

 mounted by triangulation cairns. The table shows that the uplift on the 

 Labrador coast has been greatest near Hopedale. Hamilton Inlet owes 

 in part its depth, and, indeed, its very existence as an inlet (it is but 

 10 fathoms deep at the Narrows), to the fact that the part of the 

 plateau on which it lies has not been elevated as much as the land to 

 north and to south. The line rapidly rises as it crosses the Strait of 

 Belle Isle, and seems to be about 500 feet in height along the whole 

 eastern shore of Newfoundland. It was last observed at St. John's. 

 Signal Hill (508 feet) is clean swept. The ridge on the south side of 

 the NaiTows is boulder-covered and the line was estimated at the dis- 



