No. 4.] HIND — NORTH-EASTERN LABRADOR. 235 



change oceanic circulation according to the views of Dr. Car- 

 penter. That such a continental elevation has taken place 

 during the last geological epoch there are strong reasons to 

 believe, and I hope during the coming summer to obtain addi- 

 tional evidences from drift deposits, to support this view, as well 

 as to establish the former existence here of wide spreading fresh- 

 water lacustrine deposits. 



6. — Ice-Bergs. 



The climate of the Labrador Coast derives much of its low 

 temperatures from sources extremely remote. The unceasing ice 

 stream, in the form of ice-bergs, which sweeps pist it, receives no 

 inconsiderable portion of its material from the seas of Eastern 

 Greenland, Iceland and even perhaps Spitsbergen, and if icebergs 

 possessed the opportunities for transporting rock masses and other 

 materials to the extent with which they have been credited, we 

 might expect to see the shores of north eastern Labrador strewed 

 with blocks derived from East Greenland, as well as from West 

 Greenland. But out of the thousands of ice-bergs I saw quite 

 near at hand last summer, in one or two instances only did I 

 detect any foreign material. The ice in general was stainless, 

 though often well stratified on the exposed sides. Whatever 

 might have been hidden in the holes and valleys on the upper 

 portion of the bergs, was of course not visible from the deck of 

 a passing vessel. I have attempted to show elsewhere* that 

 infusorial life accompanies the ice-bergs to a remarkable extent, 

 and that the great ice-stream from East Greenland seas, sweep- 

 ing past Cape Farewell, thence northerly, north-westerly, westerly 

 and southerly until it comes on the Labrador, is a vast distribu- 

 ting agent of fish ova and indirectly of fish food, but as to its 

 geological work on the scale whieh has been assigned to it, there 

 does not appear to be any evidence on the north eastern Labrador. 

 It is no doubt adding a small amount of debris to the banks on 

 whieh the bergs strand, and is deepening the water on the coasts 

 which are steep-to, by the incessant rolling and grinding of the 

 ber<is with the swell of the sea. 



* i Notes on the Northern Labrador Fishing Grounds' — Nov. 1376 ; 

 also { Notes on Anchor Ice,' Dec. 1876 and Jan. 1877. 



Vol. VIII. p No. 4. 



