10 nSHING-GEOUNDS OF NOETH AMERICA. 



Professor Hind attributes the formation of the inner banks to ancient glaciers, which once 

 occupied the fiords along the coast. Regarding this subject he wrote as follows : 



"But the glaciers of Labrador have probably left even more valuable records in the form of 

 moraines of their early existence here than deep fiords or innumerable islands. These are the 

 shoals or banks which lie some fifteen miles outside of the islands, and on which icebergs strand 

 in long lines and in groups. I have styled them the inner range of banks, to distinguish them 

 from a supposed outer range in deeper water, and where larger icebergs also sometimes take the 

 ground. The inner banks, as far as they are known, are stated by fishermen to have twenty to 

 forty fathoms of water on them. 



" Commander Maxwell's soundings, between Cape Harrison and Gull Island, near Hopedale, 

 and just outside of the island zone, rarely show depths greater than forty fathoms. In one 

 instance only, iu a distance of about one hundred and ten nautical miles, is a depth of fifty-nine 

 fathoms recorded." 



The character of the southernmost portion of the outer or Atlantic coast of Labrador is 

 described as follows by Professor Hind: 



" The admiralty chart portrays a very important conformation of the Labrador coast line from 

 Saint Lewis Sound to Spotted Island. The trend between the Battle Islands south of Saint Lewis 

 Sound and the Spotted Islands (Domino Eiver), a distance of sixty-five miles, is due north, and, 

 with very few exceptions, there are no islands throughout this distance off the coast; but as soon 

 as the coast line begins to turn northwest islands are numerous, and continually increase in 

 number as far as Cape Mugford, and even toward Cape Chudleigh. Between Capes Harrison and 

 Mugford the island zone may be estimated as having a depth of twenty miles from the mouths of 

 the fiords seaward. The causes of the general absence of islands south of Spotted Islands 

 probably can be traced to the never-ceasing action of northern ice driven on the coast line, when 

 it suddenly makes its southern bend by the influence of the rotation of the earth upon the Arctic 

 current. This current sweeps past the Labrador with a velocity of from one and a half to two 

 miles per hour, and a westerly pressure due to the earth's rotation estimated at about eleven 

 'nches; that is to say, the mean level of the sea, on the coast of Labrador, is about eleven inches 

 above the level it would assume if uninfluenced by the earth's rotation. As soon as the ice-laden 

 current reaches the Spotted Islands, it is in part relieved from this pressure by the trend of the 

 coast from southeast to due south. Hence the current changes its course southerly and on to the 

 land. But the effect of this sudden change in the direction of the current near the shore is to 

 throw the icebergs on to the coast from Spotted Islands to Cape Saint Lewis, where they may be 

 seen stranded each year in great numbers. The islands, which doubtless ever existed here, have 

 been removed by constant attrition acting uninterruptedly for ages, and with the islands the 

 moraines lying seaward. We may then trace the cause of the vast difference between the 

 distribution of stranded icebergs south of Spotted Islands and northwest of them. In some 

 cases they are stranded on and near the coast line, wearing it away and deepening the water near 

 it, assisted by the undertow; in other cases they are stranded some fifteen miles away from the 

 island fringe, and are continually adding to the banks the ddbris they may bring in the form of 

 mud streaks from the glacier which gave them birth in the far north and northeast. 



" It is more than probable that this distribution of icebergs has a very important bearing upon 

 the food and feeding grounds of the cod, which justifies me for referring here in so much detail to 

 the action of glacial ice." 



