126 Report of the Brown-Harvard Expedition. 



large variety of Arctic flowering plants, some of which are 

 of great beauty. 



Glaciation, submergence, and erosion have together 

 molded into their present form the original rock-masses of 

 the country. These are almost everywhere com.posed of the 

 so-called Laurentian gneiss, cut by intrusions of volcanic 

 trap. In some places, however, sedimentary rocks appear, 

 as in the vicinity of Pomiadluk, of Mugford, and of Ramah. 

 The ice of the glacial epoch ground down these rocks, 

 rounded the summits, and furrowed out deep valleys and 

 fiords. "The movement of the ice followed the general slope 

 of the country outward in all directions from a central gath- 

 ering ground, or neve, and the thickness of the ice was such 

 that in its flow it passed over ridges and valleys unchanged, 

 or with only slight deflections."* The higher summits alone, 

 in the northern part of the country, were unaffected by the 

 ice-sheet. After or during the glacial period, the whole 

 country sank, and the sea consequently rose to a higher level 

 on its shores. Now the land is rising again and stands from 

 two to four hundred feet higher than at the period of its 

 greatest submergence. This gradual uplift has left on all 

 the lower slopes clearly marked evidences of the former 

 levels of the sea. Meanwhile the surface has been broken 

 up and diversified by frost and flood. To a large extent these 

 activities have left the hills and mountains with rounded sum- 

 mits and gradual slopes, both among the lower elevations 

 of the south and the more massive structures of the north. 

 Sometimes, however, other characteristic erosive forms apn 

 pear, such as the rocJies moutonnees of Pomiadluk, the round 

 or pyramidal summits bounded by vertical cliffs at Mugford, 



* Low, loc. cit., p. 290 L. 



