30 THOMAS L. WATSON 



small terraces, mostly too low to be distinctly counted, but there 

 might be a hundred of these between the sea level and the high- 

 est parts of the island visible. These appeared to be partly 

 ancient beaches, and partly the outcropping edges of nearly 

 horizontal strata." 



Marble Island,^ he says: " Even the bowlders and coarse 

 shingle forming the raised beaches remain quite white, and these 

 beaches appear as conspicuous horizontal lines against the dark 

 vegetable matter." 



Degree of rapidity of the iiplift. — It is strikingly noticeable 

 from the description of the beaches given above, as also from 

 their study in the field at the various localities in which they 

 occur, that the conditions suggest a difference in the rapidity of 

 movement with which the land was raised above the waters at 

 the successive stages and levels. The movement seems to have 

 varied in intensity or rate for the same locality. In the case of 

 the two highest beaches on Big Island and at Niantilik harbor, the 

 conditions point very strongly indeed to a uniformly slow change 

 in level. The interval between the two beaches at each of these 

 places is marked by intermediate fragmentary lines. Materials 

 are strewn thickly over the area between in an interlocking 

 manner. This condition is strikingly absent from the land 

 areas between the lower beaches. Thus the change in level 

 from the second highest beach downward was sudden and rapid, 

 and is better described as having taken place by jumps, so^to 

 speak ; while above this line the change in level must have been 

 less sudden and violent, and in character slow and gradual. At 

 Icy Cove and the mainland to the north of Ashe Inlet, the con- 

 ditions indicate the same sudden or rapid jwnping movement as 

 in the lower levels at Niantilik and Ashe Inlet. 



Going still farther westward the lands along the west coast of 

 Hudson Bay have been described as containing raised beaches, 

 thus indicating recent elevation in that region. In speaking 

 of the raised beaches in the Aberdeen Lake region, Mr. Tyrrell^ 



'Canad. Geo). Sur. Kept. Prog. 1882, 1883, 1884, p. 35 DD. 

 ^Geol. Mag., 1894, Vol. I, decade 4, p. 398. 



