298 THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 



we find the snow-line reaching as far down as one thou- 

 sand feet, or thereabouts, above the sea-level. We are 

 inclined to doubt the accuracy of Parry's estimate of the 

 -height of these table-lands, as the height of Mount Bache 

 is over two thousand feet, and it just reaches the lowest 

 limit of the snow-line, which in Greenland is two thou- 

 sand feet above the sea. 



Owing to the extensive weathering of the rock, glacial 

 grooves and scratches occur very rarely.* I doubt not 

 they will be found abundantly after ascending five hun- 

 <lred to eight hundred feet from the sea-level, for below 

 this point the action of the waves and shore-ice has 

 obliterated both striae and loose drift. We have good 

 evidence that an enormous glacier once filled the gr^at 

 fiord, Hamilton Inlet, which at its mouth is forty miles 

 broad. Peculiar lunoid furrows were observed on the 

 northern and southern shores about forty miles apart, 

 Avhich would seem to justify the conclusion, that the 

 glacier was of that breadth where it descended into the 

 sea. The best examples of these lunoid furrows oc- 



* J. F. Campbell, who visited this coast in 1864, states in his work entitled 

 ■" Frost and Fire," that at Indian Island, lat. 53° 30' "the striae pointed into 

 Davis's Strait at a height of four hundred feet above the sea; at Red Bay, in the 

 Strait of Belle Isle, they aimed N. 45° E. at the sea-level." 



At Newfoundland, about St. John's, " the strise which were found were near 

 the coast, and seem to indicate large land-glaciers moving seawards. At St. 

 John's the marks run over the Signal Hill, five hundred and forty feet high, from 

 W. and N. 85° W. eastwards; at Harbor Grace, from S. 75° W. down the bay 

 northeastwards; at the head of Conception Bay they fill a large hollow, over- 

 run hills, and point from S. 15° W. northwards. Vast terraces of drift stretch 

 ^long the base of rounded hills at the head of Conception Bay, at Harbor Grace, 

 and at Old Purlican, near the end of the bay, sixty miles off. At the head of 

 the bay most of this drift seems to have come from the hills. Opposite to 

 granite hills are numerous blocks of granite; opposite to sandstone and slate 

 Jiills, sandstone and slate bowlders abound." — " Frost and Fire," ii. 1865, p. 240. 



