146 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. chap. xxix. 



phous basalt, fifty feet thick, 990 feet long, and 210 feet wide 

 in its broadest part, which is in the centre. The mass is sup- 

 ported by an aggregation of basaltic columns, the greatest height 

 of which is twenty-five feet. The smallest periphery to any one 

 of these is two feet, and the largest seven feet six inches. The 

 position of the columns is vertical or nearly so, and in close 

 contact to one another. They are jointed at every foot or one 

 foot six inches. They vary in the number of sides. Captain 

 Campbell saw them of five, six, seven, and eight sides ; one he 

 measured was an irregular pentagon of six feet six inches in 

 periphery ; another he brought home has eight sides (the smallest 

 may perhaps be esteemed only a truncation), and it is remark- 

 able for possessing the process described by McCulloch. The 

 base of these pillars is 180 feet above the water. Total height 

 to the siunmit of the amorphous basalt, 255 feet above the sea. 

 This fijrmation extends to another island to the westward, called 

 Saddle Island, 120 yards from Castle Reef Rock, as the basaltic 

 precipice is termed. On Saddle Island there are three caves on 

 the side towards the sea ; the deepest cavern penetrates sixty 

 feet, and is forty-five feet broad in the middle. The flooi's are 

 strewn with fragments of columns, and the sides ornamented 

 by those which their removal exposed to view. The ceiling is 

 smootli and black. The strike of this formation is from east to 

 west ; it probably extends a very considerable distance inland. 



The v/liole of the great table-land from the Mistassinni 

 River to the Atlantic, including the Ungava district, 

 appears to be strewn with erratics in infinite numbers. 

 The description of the Mistassinni country by the dis- 

 tinguished botanist Michaux shows that it is in all 

 respects similar to what I saw at the edge of the table- 

 land on the east branch of the Moisie. 



It has been already stated in a preceding chapter that 

 the first Europeans who succeeded in crossing the neck 

 of the Peninsula between the St. Lawrence and Hudson's 



