202 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 
' Although white is the prevailing colour of these limestones, 
this, in some localities, is replaced by light-gray and occasion- 
ally by mottled varieties.' 
' The limestone bands have not suffered greater denudation 
than the gneisses, and they form hill and dale alternately with 
the latter. Owing to the scantiness of vegetation in 
Baffin land, the white colour of the limestones on the sides and 
tops of the hills and ridges renders them very conspicuous in 
the landscape. Seen from a hill-top at a distance of fifteen or 
twenty miles, they might be taken for glaciers.' 
' As to the total thickness of the twelve bands of crystalline 
limestone which have been mentioned as occurring in this part 
of Baffin land, the available data on the subject are not sufficient 
to form a correct estimate, but on adding together their probable 
approximate widths it seems to be no exaggeration to place their 
possible total volume, great as it may appear, at about 30,000 
feet, or on an average of 2,500 feet for each of the principal 
bands, taking no account at all of the smaller ones.' 
From his observations made along the coast to the eastward 
of Big island in 1885, and from the finding of crystalline lime- 
stone fragments by Hall in Frobisher bay, Dr. Bell concludes 
that the crystalline limestones extend eastward to Resolution 
island, giving a very extensive development of the Grenville 
series of the Laurentian in the southern part of baffin island. 
At present we know that the limestones of the typical Gren- 
ville series are only the highly crystalline equivalents of some 
of the Huronian limestones. This probably is the case in Baffin 
island, where these rocks with some of the accompanying 
gneisses represent a highly metamorphic phase of portions of 
the Huronian, while other of the gneisses are the foliated state 
of the granite masses which caused the alteration of the lime- 
stones. This would correlate the rocks on the north side of 
Hudson strait with the altered Huronian rocks of northern 
Labrador, where in places similar crystalline limestones occur. 
