Sketch of the Geology of the Arctic Regions. 7 
Sea coast east of the McKenzie. 
At Parry’s peninusula, still on the margin of the sea, commences 
limestone. The beaches are covered with rolled pieces, and on the 
precipitous banks it appears in weather worn columns, while in other 
sections it spreads away into flat horizontal strata, and fragments of 
chert, dolomite, and green stone, are scattered over its surface. Veg- 
etation is very scanty here, and through large tracts, there is not even 
the vestige of a lichen. 
Sea coast. Cape Lyon to the Coppermine River. 
The slaty clay occurs in thin bluish grey layers, interspersed with 
scales of mica. It rises into softly swelling hills, running under ridges 
of trap rock, which traverse the lower country and rise to the height 
of seven or eight hundred feet above the sea. On the coast, the 
trap ridges form lofty precipices,—and in many places, the clay strata 
are washed away and the greenstone columns overhang the beach. 
Eastward, the line of coast becomes lower, fine grained flesh color- 
ed quartzose sandstone occurs, and gothic arches of limestone in al- 
most architectural proportions. Naked barren ridges of iron shot 
greenstone, cross the country at point De Witt Clinton, and the up- 
per soil consists of white magnesian limestone gravel, and bluish clay. 
rom this district to the mouth of the Coppermine River, lime- 
stone is the prevailing rock, accompanied by varieties of sandstone, 
greenstone, trap rocks, and porphyry, with disseminated minerals of 
almost numberless species. 
Vegetation ceases before reaching this line of coast, which is be- 
tween 69° and 70° N. A patch of moss, or a clump of’ dwarf wil- 
lows in the crevices, or under the shelter of decaying drift wood, oc- 
casionally surprises the eye of the explorer, but with these very rare 
exceptions, no trace of verdure or herbage is seen. 
fI. From Suave Laxe to Tue Arctic Ocean sy THE CoprEr- 
MINE River. ° 
Primitive rocks occur east of the Slave River where it joins Slave 
e: they consist chiefly of granite, containing flesh colored fel- 
spar and quartz, with but little mica. Coarse granite with mica, in 
large plates, forms the Reindeer Islands. The same formation con- 
