210 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
crystalline. Gneisses, intrusive granites, syenites, gabbros, and traps 
prevail from the Straits to Cape Chidley. 
The results of last summer confirm this general view, but it was found 
that sedimentary formations not heretofore described appear in great 
development on the shield border. At Pomiadluk Point, at Aillik Bay 
and in the Mugford region, as well as in the long stretch from Saeglek 
Bay to Ramah, the crystallines form the foundation to stratified series 
of very diverse character... These merit particular notice in a sketch, 
however brief, of the general geology of the coast. The extrusive lavas 
of the Mugford series, the intrusive traps which occur in astonishing 
profusion in the 700-mile belt, and the gabbros of Paul’s Island and 
vicinity will also claim attention. It will be shown that a correlation 
of the strike-directions of schists and sediments indicate in the coastal 
border a decided N.W.-S.E. trend which corresponds rather closely with 
the average trend of the shore-line. Finally such observations as have 
been made on the topography and physiography will be described in 
connection with the bed-rock geology. 
From THE Straits oF Bette IsteE To Pauw’s IsuaNnp. 
GENERAL TopocrapHy. — As far north as Cape Mugford, over five 
hundred miles from the Straits, the edge of the plateau is in plan 
extremely ragged. Numerous fiords, ria-like bays and a vast archi- 
pelago of outlying islands or skerries form a coastal fringe. The simi- 
larity of landscape is so great that Forbes’s description of the coast of 
Norway on the route from Trondhjem to Bergen may be repeated for 
this portion of Labrador. A series of inlets penetrates “in all directions 
a low, bare, rocky land, partly island, partly continent, nowhere rising 
but to a very small height above the sea, and so monotonous in charac- 
ter, and destitute of long reaches, or natural landmarks, as to seem to 
require an almost superhuman instinct for its pilotage.’’ + 
The contours of the islands are repeated in the hills of the low 
plateau of the mainland; the inlets, sounds, and narrow channels among 
the islands (the “tickles” of the fishermen) represent the submerged 
equivalents of the valleys on the mainland. From any command- 
ing hill on island or mainland, the eye ranges far and wide over a 
surface showing everywhere the evidence of universal and profound 
glaciation. Unobscured by forest, soil, or thick drift, and singularly ex- 
panded because of the crystalline clearness of the atmosphere, the view 
1 J. D. Forbes, Norway and its Glaciers, Edinburgh, 1853, p. 104. 
