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. 



