Labrador, in lat. 53° 50′, and said to be never free from snow; they have not been visited by the missionaries, who now seldom go far to the south of Hopedale.
With respect to their actual height little can be said with certainty, but as Mount Thoresby, on an island south of Kiglapyed was ascertained by the officers of H.M.S. Medusa and Thalia, to be 2733 feet, and the Kiglapyed is evidently higher, yet inferior to the Kaumayok and Nachwak heights, the latter cannot be assumed at less than 3000 feet. This supposition gains additional probability, from the circumstance that the Kaumayok has been seen by Capt. Frazier,[1] at a distance of upwards of 30 leagues from land. The mountains to the west of Cape Chudleigh are much lower, and, according to the accounts of the missionaries, of a different nature; but wherein the difference consists we are unable to determine.
It would, doubtless, be highly interesting to ascertain the constituent strata of these elevations; but the attention of the missionaries being more directed to mineralogical than geological specimens, and being apt to esteem nothing worth notice, but what, by form or colour attracted notice, we have little more than hints to guide our suppositions.
From the islands near Cape Chudleigh we have received specimens of large-grained pale granite, with garnets. The island of Ammitok (about lat. 59' 20′) is described as consisting almost entirely of a crumbling granite, sometimes mixed with hornblende. The mountains of Nachwak, about Nachwak bay, furnish considerable quantities of lapis ollaris, generally of the grey kind, (of which a specimen is sent) but sometimes of the semi-transparent
- ↑ The master of the ship annually sent with provisions to the missionaries.
