DALY: GEOLOGY OF THE NORTHEAST COAST OF LABRADOR. 263 
Very rarely are the benches of great breadth or length; nor are they 
usually horizontal. They have been developed by rifting on gently 
curving master-joints. They are not the continuous, horizontal terraces” 
of our text-book diagrams. The benches cannot be taken to mean so 
many halts during the process of elevation ; but are rather determined 
in size, form, and position by the controlling planes of jointing. 
Elevated sea-chasms, often located on trap-dikes, indent the cliffs in 
large numbers. The great length of some of these is quite extraordinary. 
A half mile northwest of the Mission House at Hopedale and at an alti- 
tude of 325 feet, a chasm three hundred yards in length has been worn 
out during submergence by waves that followed the trend of a trap dike. 
The vast majority of the fossil chasms are similarly located on trap 
dikes. The latter, with respect to subaerial destruction, may be hard 
in comparison to the country-rock and project above the highest shore- 
line as ridges; below that line the same dikes may prove less resistant 
to the attack of the waves than the country-rock and have thus served 
to locate chasms. Examples occur on the shores of Aillik Bay. The 
position of the highest shore-line is beautifully shown at the upper ter- 
mination of a dike-chasm, still floored with rounded boulders, that forms 
a conspicuous landmark above the anchorage at Ford Harbor. Above 
the line, the surface of the dike is fush with the glaciated gneiss. The 
most picturesque chasm seen during the summer is one 250 yards long, 
75 feet deep, and 20 feet wide that was found on Long Island, at 
American Tickle. The waves still reach nearly to the head of this chasm, 
which is still being slowly deepened. 
The waste of the fossil cliffs is seen at the present day in the raised 
beaches and other boulder accumulations that also represent, in part, the 
rearranged drift that once lay scattered over the emerged zone. In 
Newfoundland and southern Labrador, these deposits are as a rule 
covered deeply under peat, which seems to prefer such graded slopes as 
a place for rapid growth. The form and location of the slope was, in 
such cases, used in connection with the natural sections of brook-beds 
to indicate the nature of the deposit. North of Hamilton Inlet, the 
lack of a vegetable cap has rendered the exposures extremely good and 
the study easy and rapid. (Plate 10, aand b.) Perhaps the finest ex- 
hibitions of the beaches were seen at Sloop Harbor (altitudes measured 
115, 140, 160, and 215 feet), Aillik Bay, Hopedale, Pomiadluk Point 
(at 55, 65, 230, 250, 260, 315, 320, and 335 feet), and Port Manvers. 
The development of the beaches was naturally found to be a function 
of four conditions, the relative amount of drift on the shore, the 
