174 
THE GEOLOGIST, 
tina, which is four or five miles distant to the west north- 
west, are said to distingniish it from any other land in 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The nearest part of the main- 
land, Red 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- 
qnarter 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 
tlirough 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 
doAvn 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 
resembling 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. For 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 Cavern, Murray 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 JMurray I3ay, 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 i-ises far in the intertor, 
and flows down throiigh 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 
Cavem ; its eastern point is Point Gaze, or Les Ecorchis, and a little 
farther on is La Hcu ; the way is dii'ectly opposite to Cape Diable, 
