GEOLOGY AND SCENERY OF NORTHEAST COAST 123 



belt of northeastern Labrador. The resulting moraines 

 and other loose deposits cannot be seen in anything like 

 their full volume, for they are almost entirely buried 

 beneath the waters of the North Atlantic. Only here and 

 there within the coastal belt itself did some lingering, 

 local ice-tongue build a small moraine to represent the 

 immense accumulations that must have resulted from 

 the strong glaciation of the coast. One such moraine has 

 been described as a unique discovery during the voyage 

 of the Brave. It was noted on the mainland opposite 

 Copper Island near Seal Island Harbour. 



For the rest of the coast, so far as known, the glacial 

 deposits consist either of very small patches of clay carrying 

 boulders or of single boulders scattered over the bed-rock 

 surface. All told, they form but a comparatively insig- 

 nificant mass of loose material left irregularly distributed 

 over the glacier-floor when the ice finally melted away. 

 As the ice-sheet shrunk, the boulders gradually and quietly 

 sank to their present resting-places. Many of the larger 

 ones were delicately poised on their corners and now form 

 "rocking-stones" which may be easily set swinging from 

 side to side with the hand. 



But a picture of the Labrador in glacial times would be 

 far from complete unless the imagination reconstruct the 

 physical geography of the lofty northern mountain-ranges 

 during that period. As far back as 1860 an American geol- 

 ogist named Lieber noted on the mainland south of Cape 

 Chidley "wild volcanic-looking mountains, . . . whose 

 craggy peaks have evidently never been ground down by 

 land-ice into domes and rounded tops." Dr. Robert 

 Bell, after a brief visit to the Torngats, said of them: 



