Van Hise and Hoshins — Pre-Cairibrian Geology. 205 



feet or more above the ice of November 2cl, 1893, are still firm 

 and strong, while some two feet and a half above the ice have 

 been almost entirely rusted away. The former have evidently 

 been comparatively free from the influence of the salt water, 

 while the latter have been wet by high tides, and even in this 

 little sheltered spot have been splashed by the spray in heavy 

 storms. 



The positions and states of preservation of these rings, which 

 were doubtless placed there in the middle of the 18th century, 

 when the masons were building Fort Prince of Wales, and 

 when the sloops regularly wintered here, clearly indicate that 

 there has been no great change in the relative heights of land 

 and water since they were set into the rock. 



After carefully considering what we know of the present 

 and former height of the water around Fort Prince of Wales, 

 and the records left on the rocky wall of Sloops Cove, but 

 more especially after comparing the map of the lagoon at the 

 mouth of Churchill River made in 1746 by Joseph Pobson, an 

 engineer, with the lagoon as it exists at present, I am forced to 

 conclude that evidence of the rising of the land, drawn from 

 the fresh appearance of the post-glacial beaches, from the 

 height of driftwood, from the silting of the mouths of rivers 

 that flow swiftly through alluvial plains or from the tales of 

 the Indians, who would doubtless regard the formation of a 

 sand-bar as the receding of the waters, is delusion, and that the 

 post-glacial uplift of this portion of the shore of Hudson Bay 

 has virtually ceased, and that the land has now reached a sta- 

 ble, or almost stable, condition. 



Art. XX YI. — Principles of North American pre- Cartibriamj 

 Geology ; by Charles Richard Van Hise. With am. 

 Appendix on Floio and Fracture of Bochs as Belated to 

 Structure; by Leander Miller Hoskins. SiKteenth 

 Annual Report, U. S. Geol Survey, Part I, pp. 571-874. 



[Author's abstract.] 



The design of the paper is (1) to give a partial discussion 

 of principles applicable to geological work among the pre- 

 Cambrian rocks of North America, and (2) to give an histori- 

 cal account of the North American pre-Cambrian, and to point 

 out the principles illustrated in the various regions. The first 

 is considered in Part I, the second in Part II. 



Part I. — Discussion of Principles. 



The discussion of principles is supplementary to that in text- 

 books rather than a full treatment. Since fossils are not avail- 



Am. Jour. Sci. — Fourth Series, Yol. II, No, 9. — September, 1896. 

 15 



