228 A - S - PACKARD, Jr., ON THE GLACIAL PHENOMENA 



rocky terraces in the interior of the Peninsula. Near the "Lake where the land lies" 

 he describes the gneiss lulls as rising in « gigantic terraces." He likewise speaks of « -eiss 

 terraces five_ rn number, the highest being about 1000 feet above the sea/' and he state 



action^ Pmg abrUpt StGpS are r0Unded ' P ° lished ' and furrowed 4 VlacS 



Mr Cayley has described them also quite fully : « We now made the fifth portage rfiftv 

 miles from the mouth of the river, and 370 feet above the level of the sea,] where we W 

 met with some curious natural steps or terraces, which were continually repeated on our 

 march. They were usually five or six in number, averaging three or four ffe hi height 

 the distances between each rather irregular, just affording room enough to take two or 

 hree paces and their surfaces presenting the appearance of having been artificially ccm 

 structed They were of the common dark hornblendic gneiss, and ran in a general north 

 east and southwest direction." 2 gcmudj noun- 



No glacial striae upon these terraces were observed near the shore. It is evident that 

 this process of terracing the crystalline rocks by frosts and shore-ice began during the h 

 cia epoch. At present we must assume that the stria, found by Professor Hind u^n these" 

 rocky steps for inland were graven by angular stones frozen into the bottoms of gW^ 

 for we find no such marks at present upon those now upon the coast, which shows how 

 insufficient is the action of floating shore, or floe-ice, or grounded bergs even, in ZaW 

 so regularly these hard crystalline rocks. 6 ' stmtm g 



We saw a good example of rocks polished by the ice and waves at Gore Island Har 

 bor, a point westward of Little Mecatina Island. On the faces of several cliffs forminl" 

 perpendicular walls facing a narrow passage into which the waves rushed with "e"! 

 force m the calmest days the sea-wall was smoothly polished and water-worn for ten 



offrotr ' 6 ab ° Ve ' the faCe ° f thG CM WaS r0 ^ hened ^ ^e action 



Upon this coast which during the summer of 1864 was lined with a belt of floe-ice 

 and bergs probably two hundred miles broad, and which extended from the Gulf of the St 

 Lawrence at Belles Amours to the Arctic seas, this immense body of floatin. ce senied 

 Erectly to produce but little alteration in its physical features. If we were to scribe^e 

 grooving and polishing of rocks to the action of floating ice-floes and bergs, howtft th, 

 the present shores far above (500 feet), and at least 250 feet below the wl Sine are 

 often jagged and angular though constantly stopping the course of masses oflce ^impelled 

 four to six miles an hour by the joint action of tides, currents and winds ? No b ul e'lfor 

 g ravel or mud were seen upon any of the bergs or masses of shore-ice. They had dropped 

 al burdens of this nature nearer their points of detachment in the high Arctic tZ s 

 Thebergs all bore evidence of having been repeatedly overturned as the/were borneSonJ 

 in the current. The floe-ice was hummocky, which is a strong proof of its having come from 

 open straits in the polar regions the masses looking as if having been frozen fndr'wu 

 jammed together, and then piled atop of each other by currents and winds long b eft n Tap-' 

 peering ; upon this coast - ; while the bergs exhibited old water-lines presenting differ nt 

 angles to the present water-level. The only discoloration noticed was "probabl/caufed by 

 seals resting upon and soiling the surface. One boulder was noticed by a member of the 

 party resting upon an iceberg off Cape Harrison in August 



Tins huge area of floating ice, embracing so many thousands of square miles, was of 



1 L ° C - dt -' p - 1 33 - 2 Up the River Moisie, he. cit., p. 82. 



