28o THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 



or Chudleigh, where they are fifteen hundred feet in 

 elevation. He adds that the highest land of the Lab- 

 rador peninsula forms a regular range of mountains 

 parallel to the Atlantic seaboard, this range becoming 

 progressively narrower from Hamilton Inlet to Cape 

 Chidley. (Report for 1884, 10, DD.) 



On the south, the coast has a northeasterly trend, fol- 

 lowing the coast-line of the southern Atlantic border of 

 the continent. From Belle Isle, situated at the mouth 

 of the Strait of Belle Isle, the eastern coast trends in a 

 northwesterly direction to Cape Chidley, thus follow- 

 ing the northwesterly trend of the northern Atlantic 

 coast-line of the continent from Cape Race in New- 

 foundland to the head oif Baffin's Bay, near latitude 80°. 

 It thus lies parallel to the western coast of Greenland. 

 The northeasterly trend of the southern coast of Labra- 

 dor is determined by the same course of the Laurentian 

 range of syenites and gneiss rocks which forms the 

 northern shore of the St. Lawrence Gulf and River. Its 

 northwesterly course beyond the Strait of Belle Isle is 

 likewise determined by a range of syenites and trap- 

 rocks, upheaved in a general N. W. and S. E. direction. 

 Thus the interior plateau of Laurentian gneiss seems 

 surrounded by a framework of igneous rocks, which 

 has apparently preserved to this day the original form 

 and proportions of the Atlantic slope of the azoic 

 nucleus of our continent. 



Laurentian Gneiss and Syenite. — Between Little 

 Mecatina Island and Henley Harbor there is a great 

 uniformity in the rocks, which are either wholly gneiss, 

 or more commonly a syenitic gneiss, forming bold head- 

 lands. At Bradore are two lofty hills of gneiss, esti- 



