346 J. Milne — Ice and Ice-worh in Newfoundland. 



present level, and some denuding agent like the present Arctic 

 current with its load of icebergs passing over it. Tliis theory, I 

 believe, is looked npon as being considerably strengthened by ob- 

 servations over a large part of North-east America. With regard to 

 the Newfoundland portion of the Western Continent, I wish to show 

 that it is not so clearly to be demonstrated. 



After watching several icebergs grounding, it appears to me that 

 they would tend to give anything but a parallelism in their abrading 

 action. 



An iceberg aground slowly lurches and rolls, and turns from side 

 to side, as it is differently affected by the wind, the tide, or a cur- 

 rent, evidently tearing up and grinding in several directions the 

 strata on which it rests. 



To conceive the method in which icebergs acted to form the 

 ''parallelism of features," as seen in Newfoundland, a picture must 

 be drawn, which I am afraid will hardly be taken as the true one. 

 As the island rises, the lines of valleys and of the hills have been 

 formed, and along these troughs, and by the ridges, the icebergs 

 pass. This initial direction may, amongst other causes, be due to 

 the configuration of pre-existing land, to the general direction in 

 which detrital matter is strewn by an ocean current. Whilst the 

 land is still beneath the surface of the w^ater, we must imagine these 

 huge islands of ice tripping along from hill-top to hill-top, some- 

 times just grazing the sides of a submerged valley, and sometimes 

 scouring the surface of a hill, like butterflies before a breeze which 

 try to stop at every tempting flower. 



That they may have scattered the boulders which are to be found 

 in most parts covering Newfoundland does not appear to be so great 

 an impossibility as that they were the originators of the parallelisms ; 

 but even these, from the observations made by myself and my com- 

 panion, the late Mr. T. G. B. Lloyd, F.G.S., during the summer of 

 1874, it appears to me that they might be ascribed to another origin. 



Ice-3Iarks in Newfoundland. — On the eastern coast of Newfound- 

 land, from the extreme South to Kirpon on the North, a distance of 

 300 miles, boulders and other indications of ice-action are to be seen 

 in most parts : reference to them has been made in the Quart. Journ. 

 GeoL Soc, London, 1874, vol. xxx., p. 725. Near St. John's, ice- 

 grooves and scratches are to be seen up to considerable heights, 

 whilst drift with well-marked stones cover the country. The narrow 

 neck of land that sejDarates the Bays of Trinity and Placentia affords 

 considerable evidence of ice-work. Standing on the water-parting 

 which divides the streams into one of these bays from those entering 

 the other, the contour of the country, which is typical of many 

 other jmrts of Newfoundland, may easily be viewed. All around is 

 a rough brown surface of berry-bearing bushes and stunted spruce, 

 dotted here and there, over which there are small soft green marshes. 

 These latter generally form the border to many a quiet pool, the dark 

 surface of which seems only to be made as a reflector for a passing 

 cloud or some bare ice-marked hummock, a few of which rise here 

 and there, forming undulations in the surrounding level. In such 



