No. 5.] HIND — NORTHEASTERN LABRADOR. 267 



I had time and opportunity to examine with cire one only of 

 the drifts or snow banks on the coast line south of Hamilton 

 Inlet. It lay under the lea of a huge wall of iopolished trap, 

 on a plateau about 100 feet above the sea level. It was remark- 

 able at a distance owing to a belt of vivid green at its base, 

 bordered by a dark baud gradually fading off into a grey, which 

 blended with the white of the snow above it. Climbing to the 

 edge of the green stripe, it was found to consist of a deep and 

 luxuriant growth of moss and grass. The dark belt succeeding 

 was found to be a layer of fragments of peat and particles of 

 sand with a few pebbles, resting upon snow, and driven there by 

 the wind. The grey band succeeded by stainless snow, con- 

 sisted of smaller bits of peat with a little sand and a few pebbles 

 sunk into the snow. The whole mass was evidently slowly 

 moving to the edge of the cliff which terminated the plateau,. 

 and pushing before it a small belt of accumulated debris. Its 

 breadth was about 60 feet, its length may have been 250 feet, 

 but its depth could not be ascertained with the appliances at 

 hand. 



This snow bank was an illustration on a very small scale of 

 numerous larger drifts seen farther to the north-west, and a 

 pigmy compared with the giant drifts filling ravines and valleys 

 on the mountain sides. Generally it may be said that nearly 

 every ravine on the slope of the range which terminates at Cape 

 Hurricane, had its permanent snow drift, with accumulated 

 layers of wind-blown sand, small pebbles, and fragments of peat, 

 the whole mass slowly sliding towards the beach, and some of 

 them withiu a few feet of the wave-washed base of the hills. 



VI. — Mechanical Effect of Snow-Drifts. 



Personal experience does not enable me to describe the me- 

 chanical effects of the larger drifts which are found farther to 

 the north, but the testimony of Mr. Lieber, who accompanied 

 the United States Solar Eclipse Expedition to Eclipse Harbour 

 in 1860, supplies the information respecting snow-drift work 

 beyond Cape Mugford. Mr. Lieber describes the slopes of 

 Mount Bache in Eclipse Harbour, lat. 59° 48' as covered with 

 loose angular blocks. Mount Bache rises 2150 feet above the 

 sea level, and so strewed was its summit and sides with " un- 

 changed blocks of gray gneiss" being part of the solid strata 

 Vol. VIII. R No 5. 



