NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GL. 
gales, and, as a consequence, few trees have bec or my Tale: rs obtain a 
foothold, and even these few owe their scragsoy 
existence to their 
being sheltered by walls or other artificial protection. The 
phanerogamic flora of the island consists nearly altogether. of 
dwarfed shrubs and herbaceous plants, such as—Vaccinium Vitis- 
Idaea, Arctostaphylos Uvarursi, Juniperus nana, Ranunculi, 
orchids, grasses, ete. The hills, or knolls rather, also present a 
bare and rugged, uninviting appearance, so you will thus under- 
stand that to the inexperienced botanist, the island presents a 
very unpromising look when first sighted; but, as the sequel will 
show, appearances here, as elsewhere, are sometimes deceptive. 
The rocks of which almost the whole of the island is composed 
are gneiss, nearly, if not all, metamorphic conditions of hornblende, 
&e., belonging, I believe, to the Upper Laurentian system. 
In section they present generally a series of light and dark bands, 
rather coarse-grained, which are so constantly varying in thickness 
and structure that no two specimens are exactly alike. Sometimes 
beds or veins of a different and, occasionally, more homogeneous 
structure occur, as serpentine, felspar, hornblende, and quartz. At 
Acha Mill there is an extensive ridge of almost pure quartz, which 
has such a tempting look that it was quarried, and an endeavour 
made to prepare it for monumental purposes, but, as might have 
been anticipated from its structure, the attempt failed, and so the 
ridge is still left to adorn the landscape. I noticed the veins of 
hornblende on the west coast, not very far from the school-house. 
The sea had not long left off the work of hewing down its rocky 
barrier, the wind was pleasantly refreshing as it came from the 
Atlantic, and the air was flooded with sunlight when I first saw 
them, and as they glittered in the noon-day sun one could easily 
imagine each crystal a gem, and the spot a veritable HI Dorado! 
The rocky knolls, with which the north end of the island is covered, 
have that peculiar rounded and polished appearance said to be due 
to the abrading action of moving ice. 
Somewhat extensive accumulations of blown sand occur, 
principally along the west coast, and in the hollows which have been 
scooped out by the wind great quantities of land and marine 
shells are found indiscriminately mixed up. The land shells consist 
mainly of Helix nemoralis and Bulimus acutus, and the marine 
shells, of Patella and Littorina. As the shells become decomposed, 
the calcareous matter gets mixed up with the sand, and being of a 
VOL. IV. Q 
