GIBB — ON CANADIAN CAVERNS. 



173 



east to west, the columns to the westward are of larger dimensions 

 than those to the eastward.* 



The north-west side of Henley Island is bounded by Antelope 

 Harbour, which is between it and the main land ; whilst south of it 

 lies the singularly- shaped Stage Island, which is low, and forms the 

 western boundary of Henley Harbour. Within the entrance of Cha- 

 teau Bay is Whale Island, which again lies in the entrance of Temple 

 Bay. The basaltic columns of Henley and Castle Islands can be 

 seen from the east point of Wreck Bay, two miles and a-half to the 

 south-westward, and I think at one time they must have been united 

 with a continuation of the basalt from one island to the other. (See 

 map, plate vii.). 



The only other part of British America where basaltic rocks are 

 met wiih on a grand scale is on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. 

 The northern side of the large island of Grand Manan, three to four 

 hundred feet high, twelve miles south of Campo Bello, New Bruns- 

 wick, at the entrance of the bay, is perfectly basaltic in many places, 

 and resembles large pieces of squared timber placed upright side by 

 side, with a perfection and beauty equal to the basaltic columns of 

 Staffa. Whole fa9ades of columns have been broken off and carried 

 away by the sea.f Near the Old Bishop the basaltic columns stand 

 erect, and apparently support the precipice, having five and six faces. 

 A small uninhabited island at the entrance of the river Magaguadavic, 

 is covered with basaltic pillars of from five to nine sides, many of 

 them retreating into the sea. The celebrated cliffs of Cape Blomidon, 

 in Nova Scotia, four hundred feet high, are composed of new red 

 sandstone surmounted by crystalline basaltic trap, having a rude 

 columnar structure, and presenting a perpendicular wall along the 

 top of the precipice. For a general description of these cliffs the 

 reader is referred to Dawson's Acadian G-eology. 



17. — Empty Basaltic Dykes of Mecattina. (See Map, pi. viii.). 



Among the most singular peculiarities of the southern coast of 

 Labrador, is the occurrence of empty basaltic dykes traversing Great 

 Mecattina Island in a north-east and south-west direction from one 

 side to the other, as described by Admiral Bayfield.:]: This island, 

 composed of the Laurentian rocks, is about thi'ee and a-half miles 

 long, north and south, about three miles wide, and is five hundred 

 feet high at its centre ; it is through these granitic (?) hills that 

 the empty dykes run. These remarkable dykes, with the position 

 of the islands, in relation to the high land inside of Cape Mecat- 



* Trans. Lit. and His. Soc. of Quebec, vol. i. In Lieutenant Baddeley's paper, 

 Castle Keep Eock is the name given to Castle Island, and Henley Island is erro- 

 neously called Saddle Island. There is a Saddle Island in Red Bay, some miles 

 to the westward of York Point. 



t Geol. Sm^vey of New Brunswick. By Abraham Gesner, St. John, 1839. 



X Sailing- directions of the Gulf and River St. Lawrence. 



