256 OBSERVATIONS ON SUPPOSED GLACIAL DRIFT. 



" is cut up by thousands of lakes, and covered with enormous rocksj 

 piled one on the top of the other, which are often carpeted with 

 large lichens of a black colour, and which increase the sombre aspect 

 of these desert and almost uninhabitable regions. It is in the spacea 

 between the rocks that one finds a few pines {Pinus rupestris), 

 which attain an altitude of three feet ; and even at this small height- 

 showed signs of decay." 



The remarkable absence of erratics in the Moisie, until an altitude 

 of about 1000 feet above the sea is attained, may be explained by 

 the supposition that they may have been carried away by icebergs 

 and coast-ice during a period of submergence, to the extent of about 

 1000 feet. I am not aware that any traces of marine Shells or 

 marine drift have been recognized, north of the Labrador Peninsula, 

 at a greater elevation than 1000 or 1100 feet. In the valley of the 

 St. Lawrence marine drift has not been observed higher than 600 

 feet above the sea. Glacial strise were seen on the " gneiss-terraces " 

 at the "Level Portage," 700 to 1000 feet above the sea. The 

 sloping sides of these terraces are polished and furrowed by glacial 

 action. Grrooves half an inch deep, and an inch or more broad, go 

 down slope and over level continuously. It is on the edge of the 

 highest terrace here that the first large boulders were observed. 



The entire absence of clay, and the extraordinary profusion of 

 both worn and rugged masses of rock piled one above the other in 

 the valley of the east branch of the Moisie (fig. 1), as we approach 

 the table-land, lead me to attribute their origin to local glacial 

 action, as well as the excavation of a large part of the great valley in 

 which the river flows. Its tributary, the Cold-water Eiver, flows in 

 the strike of the rocks through a gorge 2000 feet deep, excavated in 

 the comparatively soft labradorite of the Labrador series** 



The descriptions which have recently been publishedf of difierent 

 parts of the Labrador Peninsula not visited by me, favour the sup- 

 position that the origin of the surface-features of the areas described 



* See Sir William Logan's ' Geology of Canada ' (1863). on the Division of the Laurentian 

 Rocks into " two formations " : 

 1st. The Labrador series. 

 2nd. The Laurentian. 

 The Labrador series, I have been recently informed by Sir William Logan, has been ascer- 

 tained by him to rest unconformably upon the older Laurentian, and will be distinguished 

 by a separate colour on his new Map of Canada. See also Mr. Sterry Hunt on the Chem- 

 istry of Metamorphic Rocks, 

 t See my ' Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula.' Longmane, 1863. 



