of the Country from Hudsoris Bay to the Polar Sea . 375 
made its appearance, it was sometimes conformable with the 
seams of stratification, as was very often noticed in the transi- 
tion clay- slate of the Copper-Mine River ; or it was entirely 
independent of these, and then it was very irregular in its direc- 
tion. The apparently confused arrangements of structure of 
clay-slate and other slaty rocks, more particularly observed at 
the Magnetic Islet in Knee Lake, and on Point Lake, proved, 
on a more extended and accurate examination, to be caused by 
the arrangement of the mass of strata into variously formed 
distinct concretions, in many of which the direction of the slaty 
structure was under very different angles, and in very different 
directions. In short, in these apparently disturbed strata we 
had, though on a great scale, the same beautiful arrangement 
that occurs in the rock named by Werner “ Topaz-Rock.” 
Independent of these various structures observable in indivi- 
dual strata, we remarked that the strata themselves, whatever 
their structure might be, were either variously waved or quite 
straight in their direction. 
The general forms, connections, and distributions of the 
mountains, hills, and plains, in the tracts we traversed, and of 
the cliffs on the coast of the Arctic Sea, were nearly the same 
that geologists have remarked as characterising similar rocks, 
similarly circumstanced in other quarters of the globe. 
Granite with sienite, gneiss, mica-slate, and clay-slate, which 
some geologists consider to be the predominating primitive rocks, 
occur in all their usual relations. Of these the gneiss appears to 
be the most extensively distributed, and to be always attended 
with a very scanty vegetation. Granite is the next in frequency, 
then mica slate, and the least abundant are the clay-slate and 
protogene. The granite is generally of a red colour, and varies 
from coarse to small granular. The loose blocks of stone, 
which crown the summits of almost all the hills in the barren 
grounds, are generally of this latter variety. Of the gneiss 
there are two varieties, the one red and the other grey. The 
mica-slate, clay-slate, and sienite, present the common varieties. 
The protogene granite, of which there is considerable abundance 
in Leave River, and in some other quarters, appears to belong 
to the mica-slate formation. 
