174 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



tina, whicL. is four or five miles distant to the west nortli- 

 west, are said to distin^isli it from any other land in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The nearest part of the main- 

 land, Ked Point, is rather more than two miles distant. Portage 

 Bay, which is on the east of Cape Mecattina — a long and singular 

 promontory of the mainland — runs in to the northward a mile and a- 

 quarter between steep and high hills, fissured in the same manner as 

 Great Island, with a rapid river at its head. The high land of 

 Mecattina is seven hundred feet above the sea, and stands directly in 

 rear of the harbour of the same name. It is not exceeded in height by 

 any other land between Bradore and the Mingan Islands. Its granite 

 is traversed from south-west to north-east by the same enormous ba- 

 saltic dykes as are found on the Great Island. " They cut completely 

 through the promontory into Portage Bay, ascending again on the 

 eastern side of the latter, till they are lost to view beyond the sum- 

 mits of the hills. In Dyke Island several of them are empty as low 

 down as the surface of the sea, dividing the island by immense open 

 fissures in such a way as to distinguish it from all others in the 

 neighbom-hood. ' ' 



What strikes the mind with wonder in examining these dykes is 

 that the basalt should have become crumbled and worn away from 

 decomposition in such a manner as to leave them quite empty, thus 

 resembhng more the character of fissures produced by an earth- 

 quake. That they are true basaltic dykes, however, is proved by 

 finding the remains of basalt in some of them, and by examining 

 the neighbouring land, which is comparatively free from them, unless 

 in the places described. Por if they were not these, we might expect 

 to see numerous rents and fissures over a less limited area than they 

 occupy. Similar phenomena are seen in many parts of Scotland, 

 but in a minor degree. The empty dj^kes of Mecattina are probably 

 the most extensive known, and I imagine assumed their present con- 

 dition when the land was submerged. 



18. — Bigsby's Caveen, Mueeat Bay. 



On the northern bank of the St. Lawrence, ninety miles below 

 Quebec, and six and a-half miles west by south from Cape Eagle, is 

 the remarkable inlet known as Murray Bay, which is. a mile and a- 

 half wide, and nearly the same distance in depth. At its head is the 

 rapid and unnavigable Murray River, which rises far in the interior, 

 and flows down through a beautiful valley from several small lakes 

 situated among the hills. At low water the bay is nearly dry, but 

 there is anchorage for vessels close under the high rocky shore, a 

 little to the eastward of the bay, as mentioned by Bayfield. The 

 western point of the bay from eight hundred to one thousand feet 

 high, is Point Pique, or White Cape, in which is situated Bigsby's 

 Cavern : its eastern point is Point G aze, or Les Ecorchis. and a little 

 I'll rt her on is La Heu ; the way is directly opposite to Cape Diable, 



