﻿154 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Deflation. In a region so given over to sands and so exposed 

 to the winds evidences of the destructive power of moving sand are 

 on every hand. The traveling of the dunes does not indeed extend 

 far inland though they have piled up about the few spruce patches 

 that remain on the shores. The most notable effect of sand etching 

 is seen in the angled crystalline boulders. These boulders are ice 

 borne, dropped where they lie by the bergs and floe ice of no recent 

 date. It is very noticeable that these ice-carried blocks are much 

 more abundant in the northern islands, Coffin and Grosse Isle, and 

 that here nearly every example, whether on or in the soil, is a 

 dreikantner, while on the southern islands such blocks are seldom 

 angled by this etching. This fact is naturally explained by the much 

 more exposed situation of the northern islands. Not only are these 

 evidences of recent deflation very apparent, but the adjoining plate 

 shows a group of sand-varnished, angular pebbles taken from several 

 feet down in the decomposed red sandstone at Grosse Isle Head — 

 a testimony that the moving sands were etching pebbles and boulders 

 when these ancient sandstones were being formed, and rather con- 

 clusive proof of the continental origin of these rocks. 



several walruses, from the skull of one taking a great leaden slug weighing 

 upward of an ounce. On the retreating sea cliffs these bones may be seen 

 projecting here and there from beneath the uncertain soil. These are rather 

 interesting occurrences as it is said that no walrus has been killed in the Mag- 

 dalens since late in the 18th century. The hunting of the walrus is one of the 

 romantic bits of the early history of the islands. Cartier's enthusiastic account 

 of Brion island and its paradisiacal charms told stories of them which excited 

 the lust of both Bretons and English and it was over the walrus hunting that 

 blood was shed between these peoples. In this pursuit it was the practice to 

 drive the great beasts from the waters or the floe ice up on to the low shore 

 platforms and shoot them at leisure. The bones of the victims are occasionally 

 found at Old Harry point and elsewhere, while the name Sea Cow (vache 

 marine) point still records these resorts. Dr J. A. Allen quotes Professor 

 Packard as stating that the last walrus seen in the gulf was in 1841, when one 

 was killed at St Augustine on the Labrador, but I have heard the report 

 that a few years ago one floated on an ice cake driven under a northeast 

 gale, well up the St Lawrence to beyond Fox river. 



The Rev. John Prout, Anglican minister in the islands, kindly put me in 

 the way of securing a very large head taken from the drifted sands at Wolf 

 island and I append here some comparative notes as to its dimensions : 



Dr Allen in his measurements of skulls of the Atlantic walrus, O d o - 

 baenus rosmarus, cites from one old male: (1) Canines, length from 

 plane of molars, 330 mm; (2) canines, circumference at base, 197 mm; (3) 

 canines, distance apart at tips, 273 mm. A middle aged male gave the follow- 

 ing: (1) 250, (2) 177, (3) 248. 



The skull taken from the sands of Wolf island has these measurements 

 thus: (1) 410 mm, (2) 190 mm, (3) 280 mm. 



