Bell, Robert
Observations on the geology, zoology and botany of Hudson's Strait and Bay,…. by Robert Bell is a scientific publication produced in the late 19th century. It reports field findings from a government-backed Arctic expedition, presenting geological structures, glacial evidence, mineral occurrences, and catalogues of regional plants and insects. The likely topic is a systematic survey of the landforms, rocks, ice, and living organisms around Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay, with notes on their scientific and economic significance.The report recounts a season of travel by steamship along Labrador into Hudson Strait and around Hudson Bay, noting iceberg and sea-ice conditions, the sharp, largely unglaciated summits of northern Labrador, and widespread raised beaches rich in marine shells. It documents minerals (notably mica, graphite, sphene, quartz–feldspar veins, and iron pyrites), and uses erratics, fossiliferous limestone fragments, and striations to infer Silurian platforms, Huronian belts, and dominant ice-flow directions from the south and southwest toward the strait. Bell describes the flat-lying limestones of Mansfield and Southampton Islands, gneissic coasts, the thoroughly glaciated Digges Islands, and the rugged Ottawa Islands of greenish-grey diorite with raised beaches and marine life. A synthetic section outlines the Laurentian “nucleus” of the continent, volcanic-derived Manitounuck rocks, trap dykes, and the distribution and resources of Huronian schists. West-coast…
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