134 A summer's cruise to northern LABRADOR. 



the loth to the 20th of this month the lakes are all 

 frozen over, and by the 20th the harbor is frozen far out 

 into the Strait, while in winter they can go out in 

 sledges on the ice to Belle Isle. 



The people here in general were well-mannered, though 

 rough and out-spoken, asking freely of our stores, and 

 commenting as freely on what they considered poor 

 returns in trade. 



To return to the Devil's Dining Table, whose geology 

 is interesting : it is a high ovate mass with vertical sides 

 and a flat top, which slightly inclines towards the south- 

 west, and consists of two layers, showing that the rock 

 is the remains of two separate eruptions, the lower con- 

 sisting of regular prismatic five-sided columns, each 

 about two feet in diameter, fluted on the sides and curi- 



V 



ously worn by transverse impressed lines. The basaltic 

 mass rests upon the upturned edges of strata of Lauren- 

 Ian gneiss which have been penetrated by dikes of sye- 

 ite. North of the basaltic cap, the underlying rocks 



CASTLE ISLAND FROM THE WEST ; a, RED SYENITE ; b, GNEISS ; t, BASALT (THE 



devil's dining-table) ; d, raised beach. 



are least disturbed, being reddish gneiss-like or foliated 

 syenite, crumbling and quite fissile, dipping at an angle 

 of 50° south, 25° east; just beyond, this reddish rock 

 runs into the usual dark Laurentian gneiss of the region. 

 Upon submitting a specimen of the basalt to Mr. J. S. 

 Diller, lithologist of the U. S. Geological Survey, he tells 

 me that it is a doleritic basalt. 



At the southeast end of the island, along the shore 



