E. sylvaticum, Linn. Newfoundland and New Brunswick, Hook. Fl. Bor. Amer.

E. sylvaticum, B. capillare. Much branched; branches very long straight, and exceedingly slender (capillary). Farmersville. E. umbrosum, Willd. Belmate.

E. arvene, Linn. West from London, W. Saunders. The rhizome bears large spherical pill-like modules, which are however more conspicuous in var. 3. granulatum.

E. arvense, B. granulatum.

E. Telmateja, Ehrhart. Shores of Lake Ontorio, Beck.

E. limosum, Fories.-The great value of this species and of E. arvense as fodder-plants, is confirmed. On the western prairies horses are said to get "rolling fat" on equisetum in ten days; and experienced travellers tell me, that their horses always go faster next day after resting at night on equisetum pasture. The horses do not take to it at first; but after having a bit of equisetum put occasionally into their mouths, they soon acquire a liking for it, and prefer it to all other herbage. Near Komoka, W. Saunders.

E. hyemale, Linn. Lake Huron, Hook. Fl. Bor. Am.; St. Joachim, Abbé Provancher; London, W. S.

E. robustum, Braun. Stems much thicker than in E. hyemale, the ridges with one line of tubercles; sheaths shorter than broad, with a black band at base, and a less distinct one at the margin ; teeth about forty, three-keeled. E. robustum, Braun, A. Gray. Grenadier Pond, on the Humber River near Toronto, 3d June 1862. It is difficult to decide whether this and other forms are really distinct from E. hyemale; certainly that species varies in size, in roughness, and in other characters. In E. robustum the teeth are twice as many as in E. hyemale, but even this is perhaps not a constant character.

E. variegatum, Weber and Mohr.; St. Joachim, Abbé Provancher.

E. scirpoides, Michaux.

E. scirpoides, B. minor.

E. palustre, Linn.-" Canada, from Lake Huron, Dr. Todd, Mr. Cleghorn, Mrs. Perceval, to the shores of the Arctic Sea, Dr. Richardson, Drummond, Sir John Franklin, Captain Back."Hook. Fl. Bor. Amer.-Professor A. Gray speaks of "the European E. palustre," attributed to this country (the N. American States) by Pursh, probably incorrectly." Dr. Hooker indicates its

existence, without doubt, in Arctic West America and Arctic East America. The name of the plant has occasionally appeared in Canadian lists, but I have as yet seen no Canadian specimen. It remains for Canadian or Hudson Bay botanists to trace its southern limit on the American Continent. In Europe and Asia it has no tendency to Arctic limitation.-From the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.

OBSERVATIONS ON SUPPOSED GLACIAL DRIFT IN THE LABRADOR PENINSULA, &c.

BY HENRY YOULE HIND, M.A., F.R.G.S.

[The most important part of this paper is that which relates to the Labrador Peninsula, which we copy entire :-EDS.]

During an exploration of a part of the interior of the Labrador Peninsula in 1861, I had an opportunity of observing the extraordinary number, magnitude, and distribution of the erratics in the valley of the Moisie River and some of its tributaries, as far north as the south edge of the table-land of the Labrador Peninsula (lat· 50° 50' N., long. 66° W.), and about 110 miles due north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Boulders of large dimensions, ten to twenty feet in diameter, began to be numerous at the Mountain Portage, 1460 feet above the sea, and sixty miles in an air-line from the mouth of the Moisie River. They were perched upon

the summits of peaks estimated to be 1500 feet above the point of view, or nearly 3000 feet above the sea-level, and were observed to occupy the edges of cliffs, to be scattered over the slopes of mountain-ranges, and to be massed in great numbers in the intervening valleys.

At the "Burnt Portage," on the north-east branch of the Moisie, nearly 100 miles in an air-line from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and 1850 feet above the ocean, the low gneissoid hills for many miles around were seen to be strewed with erratics wherever a lodgment for them could be found. The valleys (one to two miles broad) were not only floored with them, but they lay there in tiers, three or more deep. Close to the banks of the rivers and lakes near the "Burnt Portage," where the mosses and lichens have been destroyed by fire, very coarse sand conceals the rocks beneath; but on ascending an eminence away from the immediate banks of the river, the true character of the country becomes apparent. At the base of the gneissoid hills which limit the valley of the east

branch (about three miles broad) at this point, they are observed to lie two or three deep, and, although of large dimensions, that is from five to twenty feet in diameter, they are nearly all ice or water-worn, with rounded edges, and generally polished or smoothed. These accumulations of erratics frequently form tongues, or spots, at the termination of small projecting promontories in the hillranges. I have several times counted three tiers of these travelled rocks where the mosses, which once covered them with a uniform mantle of green, had been burnt; and occasionally, before reaching the sandy area which is sometimes found on the banks of the river, I have been in danger of slipping through the crevices between the boulders, which were concealed by mosses, a foot and more deep, both before and after passing through the "Burnt Country," which has a length of about thirty miles where I crossed it. I extract the following note from my journal of the appearance of these travelled rocks in the "Burnt Country":Huge blocks of gneiss and labradorite lie in the channel of the river, or on the gneissoid domes which here and there pierce the sandy tract through which the river flows. On the summit of the mountains, and along the crest of the hill-ranges, about a mile off on either side, they seem as if they had been dropped like hail. It is not difficult to see that many of these rock-fragments are of local origin; but others have evidently travelled far, on account of their smooth outline. From a gneissoid dome, I see that they are piled to a considerable height between hills 300 and 400 feet high; and from the comparatively sharp edges of many around me, the parent rock cannot be far distant."

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On all sides of Cariboo Lake, 110 miles in an air-line from the Gulf, and 1870 feet above it, a conflagration had swept away trees, grasses, and mosses, with the exception of a point of forest which came down to the water's edge and formed the western limit of the living woods. The long lines of enormous unworn boulders, or fragments of rocks, skirting the east branch of the Moisie at this point, were no doubt lateral glacial moraines. The coarse sand in the broad valley of the river was blown into low dunes, and the surrounding hills were covered with millions of erratics. No glacial striæ were observed here, but the gneissoid hills were rounded and smoothed at their summit; and the flanks were frequently seen to present a rough surface, as if they had been recently exposed by land-slides, which were frequently observed, and the cause which produced them, namely, frozen waterfalls.

No clay or gravel was seen after passing the mouth of Coldwater River, forty miles from the Gulf, and 320 feet above it. The soil, where trees grew, was always shallow as far as observed; and although a very luxuriant vegetation existed in secluded valleys, yet it appeared to depend upon the presence of labradorite-rock or a very coarse gneissoid rock, in which flesh-colored feldspar was the prevailing ingredient.

Observers in other parts of the Labrador Peninsula have recorded the vast profusion in which erratics are distributed over its surface. There is one observer, however, well known in another branch of science, who has left a most interesting record of his journey in the Mistassinni country, between the St. Lawrence at the mouth of the Saguenay, and Rupert's River, in Hudson's Bay. André Michaux, the distinguished botanist, traversed the country between the St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay in 1792. He passed through Lake Mistassinni; and in his manuscript notes, which were first printed in 1861, for private circulation, at Quebec, a brief description of the journey is given. "The whole Mistassinni country," says Michaux, "is cut up by thousands of lakes, and covered with enormous rocks, piled one on the top of the other, which are often carpeted with large lichens of a black color, and which increase the sombre aspect of these desert and almost uninhabitable regions. It is in the spaces between the rocks that one finds a few pines (Pinus rupestris), which attain an altitude of three feet; and even at this small height showed signs of decay."

The remarkable absence of erratics in the Moisie, until an altitude of about 1000 feet above the sea is attained, may be explained by the supposition that they may have been carried away by icebergs and coast-ice during a period of submergence, to the extent of about 1000 feet. I am not aware that any traces of marine shells or marine drift have been recognized, north of the Labrador Peninsula, at a greater elevation than 1000 or 1100 feet.

In the valley of the St. Lawrence, marine drift has not been observed higher than 600 feet above the sea. Glacial striæ were seen on the "gneiss-terraces" at the "Level Portage," 700 to 1000 feet above the sea. The sloping sides of these terraces are polished and furrowed by glacial action. Grooves half, an inch deep, and an inch or more broad, go down slope and over level continuously. It is on the edge of the highest terrace here that the first large boulders were observed.

The entire absence of clay, and the extraordinary profusion of both worn and rugged masses of rock piled one above the other in the valley of the east branch of the Moisie, as we approach the table-land, lead me to attribute their origin to local glacial action, as well as the excavation of a large part of the great valley in which the river flows. Its tributary, the Cold-water River, flows in the strike of the rocks through a gorge 2000 feet deep, excavated in the comparatively soft labradorite of the Labrador series.*

The descriptions which have recently been published† of different parts of the Labrador Peninsula not visited by me, favor the supposition that the origin of the surface-features of the areas described may be due to glacial action, similar to that observed in the valley of the Moisie River.

The remainder of the paper treats of the "Forced Arrangement of Blocks of Limestone in Boulder Clay," "The Driftless Area in Wisconsin," "Beaches and Terraces," "Anchor-ice and Excavation of Lake-basins," "Parallelism of Escarpments in America." Many interesting facts are adduced in these subjects; and the author takes strong ground in advocacy of the action of glaciers rather than of icebergs in the production of glacial striæ. He claims this view as suggested by him in 1859. His view in reference to the excavation of lake-basins is stated in the following terms. It suggests some new views; though probably all geologists will not accept the cause assigned, as the most important of those which have acted in producing this effect:

It has been frequently stated that a difficulty arises as to the modus operandi by which a moving glacier can excavate lakebasins. May not the manner in which stratified rocks, at least, over which a glacier may be moving, can be involved in its mass in the form of slabs or mud, constituting dirt-beds, be partially explained by the phenomena attending the formation of anchor-ice?

It is

See Sir William Logan's "Geology of Canada" (1863), on the Division of the Laurentian Rocks into "two formations":

1st. The Labrador series.

2nd. The Laurentian.

The Labrador series, I have been recently informed by Sir William Logan, has been ascertained by him to rest unconformably upon the older Laurentian, and will be distinguished by a separate color on his new Map of Canada. See also Mr. Sterry Hunt on Chemistry of Metamorphic Rocks.

† See my "Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula." Longmans, 1863.