1865.] GEOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF CANADA. 357 



with about fifty miles to the south-east, where it enters Vermont, 

 and is there known as the Green Mountain range, which forms the 

 eastern limit of the valley of Lake Champlain. In Canada, this 

 range, stretching from the parallel of 45° north latitude to the Gulf, 

 is known as the Notre-Bame Mountains, hut to its north-eastern 

 portion, the name of the Shickshock Mountains is often given. 



The flank of the northern hills, known as the Laurentides, forms 

 the north shore of the river and gulf, until within twenty miles of 

 Quebec. It then recedes, and at the latter city is already about 

 twenty miles distant from the 'St, Lawrence. At Montreal the 

 base of the hills is thirty miles in the rear, and to the westward of 

 this it stretches along the north side of the Ottawa River for about 

 100 miles, and then runs southward across both the Ottawa and 

 the St. Lawrence, crossing the latter river a little below Kingston , 

 at the Thousand Islands, and entering New-York. Here the Lau- 

 rentides spread out into an area of about 10,000 square miles of 

 high lands, known as the Adirondack region, and lying between 

 the Lakes Champlain and Ontario. The narrow belt of hill-coun- 

 try which connects the Adirondacks with the Laurentides north of 

 the Ottawa, divides the valley of the St. Lawrence proper from 

 that of the great lakes, which is still bounded to the north by a 

 continuation of the Laurentides. The base of these from near 

 Kingston runs in a western direction, at some distance in the rear 

 of Lake Ontario, until it reaches the south-west extremity of Geor- 

 gian Bay on Lake Huron ; after which it skirts this lake and 

 Lake Superior, and runs north-westward into the Hudson Bay 

 Territory. This great northern hill-region consists of the oldest 

 known rock-formation of the globe, to which the name of the Lau- 

 rentian system has been given, and occupies, with some small ex- 

 ceptions, the whole of the province northward of the limits just 

 assigned. We shall designate it as the Laurentian Region. 

 Over a small portion of this area, "along Lakes Huron and Supe- 

 rior, and farther eastward on Lake Temiscaming is another series 

 of rocks, to which the name of the Huronian system is given. But 

 as the country occupied by these rocks is geographically similar to 

 the Laurentian, it is for convenience here included with it. 



To the south of this region the whole of Canada west of Mon- 

 treal, with the exception of the narrow belt of Laurentian country 

 described as running southward across the Ottawa and St. Law- 

 rence Rivers, is very level. The same is true to the eastward of 

 Montreal until we reach the Notre-Dame range of hills, already 



