3l6 THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 



the common dark hornblendic gneiss, and ran in a gen- 

 eral northeast and southwest direction." * 



No glacial striae upon these terraces were observed 

 near the shore. It is evident that this process of terrac- 

 ing the crystalline rocks by frosts and shore-ice began 

 during the glacial epoch. At present we must assume 

 that the striae found by Professor Hind upon these 

 rocky steps far inland were graven by angular stones 

 frozen into the bottoms of glaciers, for we find no such 

 marks at present upon those now upon the coast, which 

 shows how insufficient is the action of floating shore- or 

 floe-ice, or grounded bergs even, in striating so regularly 

 these hard crystalline rocks. 



We saw a good example of rocks polished by the ice 

 and waves at Gore Island Harbor, a point westward of 

 Little Mecatina Island. On the faces of several cliffs 

 forming perpendicular walls facing a narrow passage 

 into which the waves rushed with great force in the 

 calmest days, the sea-wall was smoothly polished and 

 water-worn for ten feet above its shore-line, while above, 

 the face of the cliff was roughened by the action of frost. 



Upon this coast, which during the summer of 1864 

 was lined with a belt of floe-ice and bergs probably two 

 hundred miles broad, and which extended from the Gulf 

 of the St. Lawrence at Belles Amours to the arctic 

 seas, this immense body of floating ice seemed directly 

 to produce but little alteration in its physical features. 

 If we were, to ascribe the grooving and polishing of 

 rocks to the action of floating ice-floes and bergs, how is 

 it that the present shores far above (500 feet), and at 



* Up the River Moisie, he, cit., p. 82. 



