264 



Georsii' E. NicJiols, 



of St. Peter (now cut by a ship canal), and which ahnost com- 

 pletely enclose the Bras d'Or Lakes, an irregularly shaped medi- 

 terranean sea fifty miles long and in places twenty miles wide. 

 The area treated as northern Cape Breton in the present paper 

 is about sixty miles long with a maximum width of about thirty 

 miles. 



A good idea of the general character of the country is con- 

 veyed by the accompanying series of photographs. In addition 



Figure 3. — View of lowland and plateau from Middle Head, Ingonish : 

 in upper right background, Mt. Franey; to left of this, valley of Clyburn 

 Brook; in foreground, low granitic headland, drift-covered, with second 

 growth forests of white spruce and balsam fir. 



to those introduced in the present connection, attention is 

 especially called to the following: Figs. 21, 24, 26, 28, 30, 33, 38, 



41. 50, 51- 



From a topographic standpoint the outstanding feature of 

 northern Cape Breton is the great interior plateau, which stretches 

 in almost unbroken continuity from Cape North nearly to the 

 Bras d'Or. This massive remnant of the ancient Atlantic Upland 

 (Goldthwait '16), composed of granites, syenites, and other 

 highly resistant, crystalline rocks of Laurentian age, includes the 

 highest land in Nova Scotia. The average elevation of its sur- 



