Section IY, ISSI. [ 79 ] Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada 



VIII. — Pliysical and Zoological Character of the Uhgava District, Labrador. 

 By Lucien M. Turner, Smithsonian Institution. 



(Presented by Mr. J. F. Whiteaves, May 25, 1887.) 



The district here denoted is contained by the waters of Hudson Bay on the west, of 

 Hudson Strait on the north, by the western slope of the Labrador coast range on the east, 

 and by the " Height of Land," about .54^ N. latitude on the south. 



The general character of the surface is gently rolling in the northern and central por- 

 tions, hilly towards the west, and mountainous to the east and south — the latter portion 

 being an elevated plateau, more or less broken, yet nowhere abruptly so, and known 

 throughout the entire country as the " Height of Land." This plateau contains many 

 lakes, some of them quite large, and from them spring streams that flow to the four points 

 of the compass. 



From this description it is not difficult to conceive the form of the area as that of a 

 huge amphitheatre, opening to the north ; the land gradually sloping in that direction 

 and embracing within its limits many large lakes and innumerable ponds. Swales and 

 swampy tracts intersected by irregular spurs, chains of hills and ridges, form a mul- 

 titude of eminences, separated by a maze of depressions covered by accumulations of moss, 

 through which flow the waters that finally fall into Hudson Strait. There appears to be 

 no particular trend to the lesser elevations, except such as form the watershed between 

 the several rivers flowing northward from the height of land ; for of those streams there 

 are but few affluents, and of these only two are worthy to be termed rivers, viz., those 

 feeding the Koksoak near the higher lands to the south. 



Fully three-fourths of the area is bare rock, the geological character of which, after 

 being cursorily examined, was found to consist mainly of rocks evidently belonging to the 

 Laurentian system, with irregular belts of Huronian dotted with occasional beds of Silu- 

 rian rock generally at the higher elevations. 



The gneiss is of a coarse texture, grayish or reddish in color, and is much mixed with 

 quartz and felspathic rocks and mica-schists. Of the latter rocks, siliceous beds of very 

 compact nature, shales and impure slates occur ; mostly, however, distant from the shores 

 of the Strait and among the higher elevations. But few true veins of any kind were dis- 

 covered among the older rocks ; one of these was a vein of beautiful rose quartz, and a 

 second of coarse grains of black mica (biotite) and quartz crumbling where exposed to 

 the atmosphere. Few economic minerals have been discovered. Beds of hematite are 

 known to exist, and clays containing sulphuret of iron are not uncommon, though the 

 source whence the specimens were deriA^ed was not determined. 



Disintegration is a noticeable feature of the higher altitudes, while the lower and 

 older rocks are polished by glacial action of apparently so recent an age that their smooth 



