174 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



from south-west to north-east more or less. The geological 

 directions are similarly aslant and parallel, and the coloured 

 geological map is striped like a tiger. A narrow band of 

 Laurentian gneiss and granite runs north-east from Hermitage 

 Bay or thereabouts to Cape Freels or thereabouts. Before 

 1763 the resident population was almost entirely confined, 

 and three-fourths of the population still reside east of this 

 band. This eastern district consists almost entirely of 

 Huronian sandstones, slates, and the like, overlain here and 

 there by Primordial or Lowest Silurian rocks. The Lauren- 

 tian rocks are the lowest known rocks, and pure Laurentian 

 country is normally barren, resembling the Scotch Hebrides ; 

 Huronian strata are only a little higher in the geological and 

 agricultural scale ; and ' Primordial ' and ' Lowest Silurian ' 

 rocks, which are higher still, yield limestone, sandstone (of 

 which the beautiful Roman Catholic Cathedral at St. John's 

 is built), and contribute most, if not all of the mineral wealth 

 of the land, but arc of little agricultural use. West of this 

 Laurentian band more fertile strips, chiefly of Silurian forma- 

 tion, cross the country along the lines of the great rivers 

 which flow into Notre Dame Bay, and their fertility is attested 

 and their development arrested by forests of timber-trees, 

 similar in kind but superior in stature to those which disadorn 

 the Huronian region. The valley of the Exploits River from 

 its mouth to its source two hundred miles away is one of 

 those strips, and the strip is prolonged from the source of the 

 Exploits southward to La Poile Bay, which is only twelve 

 miles away. The interstices between these fertile strips are 

 filled mainly with Laurentian ' barrens '. Behind these Silurian 

 strips is the main range, which extends from Cape Ray to 

 Belle Isle and other islands between Newfoundland and 

 Labrador, and the backbone of the main range is Laurentian. 

 Behind the range is the west coast, which, narrow though it is, 

 has more modern and variegated formations than all the rest 

 of the country put together. Thus the highlands from Cape 



