OF LABRADOR AND MAINE. 219 



at intervals from the coast to the interior. They take the form of occasional, isolated sand- 

 banks and cliffs of clay, of slight extent, overhanging rivers, and which by their secluded 

 and retired positions have escaped the general denudation by the Labrador current which 

 must have passed over the lower levels of the Peninsula subsequent to the glacial epoch. 

 In travelling in the interior we find ourselves walking, when it is possible to walk or 

 climb at all, over the rocky floor of this inhospitable region, smoothed in spots, though 

 rarely striated by glaciers, but on the coast more generally mangled and torn bv the action 

 of shore-ice and frosts, which have here shown a vast power. 



The Leda clays are mostly confined to the head of retired bays, or if in more exposed 

 situations, lie between bold headlands. Those vast sand barrens of Canada and New Eno-land 

 spreading into broad plains, are here represented by precipitous masses of sand hanging 

 upon the steep mountain slopes. The traveller stumbles upon them in ascending the swift 

 impetuous streams. 



The most abundant superficial deposits in Labrador are the ancient sea-beaches, which 

 are found, according to Prof. H. Y. Hind, at all levels to a height of 1200 feet above the 

 sea, at a distance in the interior of one hundred and twenty-five miles from the coast. 

 The)' are evidently altered glacial moraines. 



Glacial Epoch. Drift Strice and rounded Rocks. The whole Labrador Plateau has been 

 moulded by ice to a height at least of 2500 feet above the level of the sea. The gneiss 

 mountains are moulded into large flat cones, often with a nipple-shaped summit ; the sye- 

 nites are either moulded into domes or into high conical sugar-loaves ; the anorthosite sye- 

 nite at Square Island occurs in high rude cones ; and the trap overflows accompanying the 

 Domino quartzites form rough irregular bosses. Only at one point near the northern ter- 

 mination of the Peninsula at Cape Chudleigh, have the mountains by their altitude escaped 

 the rounding and remodelling action of glaciers. These scraggy peaks, covered with loose 

 square blocks detached by frosts from their slopes, remind us of the summits of Mount 

 Washington in New Hampshire, and Mount Katahdin in Maine. In a sketch of the former 

 mountains by Mr. Lieber, as given in the "Eeport of the Coast Survey," the transition from 

 the remodelled low mountains of the coast, to the " wild volcanic looking mountains " of 

 the interior height of land, is very marked. Mount Bache, which was determined by the 

 expedition to be 2150 feet high, was "one of the smallest mountains." The larger ones 

 are inaccessible. Those who have been upon the summits of Mount Washington or Katah- 

 din will recognize how well Mr. Lieber's description of the summit of Mount Bache agrees 

 with the physiognomy of the New England alpine summits : — 



" A second cause of the irregularity of surface here is to be found in the tremendous 

 power of the frost of a Labrador winter, the influence of the heavy covering of snow, and 

 very probably also the former existence of glaciers, all of which we shall presently take 

 occasion to discuss. 



u The effects of frost are manifested in a singularly forcible manner. The entire surface, 

 where it is not too steep to enable debris to collect, is covered with broken masses of rock, 

 cubes of ten feet and less scattered in wildest profusion. Sometimes a patch of moss, the 

 grass and heather of this country, fills up the crevices, but generally we may look down 

 into them far and deep without ever detecting the base upon which the rocks rest, hurled 

 aloft, as they appear, by the hands of Titans. In scaling, in company with Mr. Venable, 

 the summit of Mount Bache, on an occasion intended mainly for taking its altitude 

 barometrically, we enjoyed the finest opportunities for studying this phenomenon. The 



MEMOIRS BOST. SOC. NAT. HIST. VOL. I. Pt. 2. 56 



