GLACIATION OF NEWFOUNDLAND, 65 
lands between the hills and the sea, are thickly strewed with boulders, frequently of enor- 
mous size, amongst which there are many derived from the traps of the Blue Hills, and 
from the Laurentian which forms the nucleus of the peninsula. At the top of the bank of 
boulder drift, and some of the higher parts of the low land, a few thin strata of fine gravel 
and sand occur, the gravel and grains water-worn. At the height of about 300 feet, on the 
parade ground above the town of St. John’s, s/riæ were observed on a smoothly polished 
surface of slate bearing N. 86° 30’ E., which points directly towards the entrance to the 
harbour. Some angular drift rests upon the slate, and the top of the bank is stratified sand 
and gravel. 
Boulders are less frequent on the surface of the country around Placentia Bay than they 
are around Conception and Trinity Bays, especially on the eastern sides of each, but the surface 
of the peninsula between the two latter bays is thickly strewed with them, of all sizes from 
a pound weight to many tons. : 
On the peninsula between Salmon Cove and Collier’s Bay, Conception Bay, a good 
example of boulder drift may be seen, which monopolizes the surface from the sea-shore 
at Burke’s Point, to the summit of Campell’s Hill, 436 feet above the sea level. Boulders are 
seen at the sea level at Burke’s Point, resting in deep furrows, which point in the usual north- 
easterly direction, and the bank is a confused mass of clay, gravel, sand and boulders. The 
surface is encumbered by blocks, mostly of vast size, to the extreme summit of the hill. 
One great block measuring 10 x 7 x 8 feet, was found supported upon a few small rounded 
boulders, its lower flat surface being nowhere nearer the rock below than from three to 
six inches. On the smooth polished rock below strie were seen bearing towards the point 
of the peninsula. The hill falls pretty rapidly on all sides, and on the south-east side there 
is a pond, the valley and stream from which point straight for Cat Cove on the one hand, 
and towards Collier’s Point on the other. 
The drainage from the hills by the courses of the rivers and brooks has cut great gaps 
through the drift-banks, which have been simultaneously worn away by the counteraction 
of the sea, as the former were discharged; and this process has occasioned the formation of 
wide and shallow lagoons, at the mouth of every stream that falls through banks of super- 
ficial material. These lagoons are protected from without by high barriers of coarse shingle 
and boulders which form a broad beach, while within, the bottoms of the shallow basins are 
~ slime and sand, the water brackish to the taste, and rising and falling with the tide. These 
beach stones, heaped up by the constant action of the sea, are clearly the coarser remains of 
the gravel and boulders of the drift banks, the higher and softer materials of which have 
been washed away and redeposited. Many such instances of the redistribution of the drift 
can be cited, on both the east and west coasts of the island, amongst which those in Concep- 
tion Bay, such as at Topsail, Manuels, and other places are prominent examples ; while, on 
the west coast, the same circumstances were noted at the mouths of all the brooks and rivers 
in St. George’s Bay, and particularly at Flat Bay, the gravel spit enclosing which is seven 
miles in length, which receives the waters of the stream called Flat Bay Brook, and several 
smaller streams, falling through the drift. At the place called “The Gravels,” which joins 
the peninsula of Port-a-Port with the mainland, the re-distribution of the drift probably 
commenced while the land was at a lower level, and when a current or strong tide was 
rushing through a narrow strait, undermining and wearing down the banks, while the 
Sec. IV., 1882. 9 
