NATURAL FEATURES 11 



manner by a glacial period that lasted much longer 

 than in Europe ; while the fierce frost of winter has 

 blasted mighty rocks, and left, wherever a resting- 

 place could be found, huge, fragments, jagged and 

 rough, "hurled aloft, as they appear, by the hands 

 of Titans." 1 



That long before the ice period volcanic fires 

 helped to mould the hills, is well shown by the out- 

 crop here and again of trap rocks. Especially near 

 the hospital at Indian Harbour is this the case, 

 where the light and polished quartzite rocks are 

 capped with black trap rocks which have overflowed 

 them. These rocks are marked with deep half-moon 

 shaped cuts, running east and west done by ice 

 and "showing that Hamilton Inlet, which at the 

 mouth is forty miles wide, was once filled with an 

 enormous glacier." 2 



Near Hopedale a beautiful blue and bronze iri- 

 descent felspar is found. It is called labradorite, 3 

 and when polished glistens in the sunlight like a 

 peacock's feather. It is used for brooches, and oc- 

 casionally for ornamenting buildings. We dropped 

 anchor one night near an island almost entirely 

 composed of this. 



Copper pyrites, mica, asbestos, with salts of some 

 of the rarer metals, such as yttrium and rubidium, 

 have been found on the coast. One mining com- 

 pany works for labradorite during the summer. 



1 Packard's The Labrador Coast. 2 Ibid. 



8 Ibid., gives fuller information. 



