334 



MINERALS AND GEOLOGY 



y 



junction with the great river and its affluents, the physical charact 

 of the province is chiefly subordinate. The range on the north (with 

 an average elevation of 1500 feet above the sea, rising in places to 

 over 2,000 feet) constitutes the Laurentide Mountains, and runs 

 roughly parallel with the Ottawa until within about 30 miles of its 

 rnouth, when the range curves towards the east, and skirting the St. 

 Lawrence a short distance inland, strikes the river at Cape Tourinente 

 a little below the city of Quebec. From this point it follows the 

 north shore of the river and Gulf to beyond the province boundary in 

 Labrador. This range and the country which it traverses consist 

 of greatly corrugated archaean gneiss, broken through by various 

 dioritic and feldspathic rocks. The southern range is properly a 

 continuation of the great Appalachian, chain of the United States. It 

 is known in Canada as the Notre Dame and Shickshock Mountain 

 .Range. It traverses the Eastern Townships, and gradually approach- 

 ing the St. Lawrence, runs along the south shore, but at a distance 

 of from 30 to about 10 or 12 miles inland, until it terminates in the 

 high table-land of Gaspe at the extremity of the Province. This 

 range, consisting of several roughly parallel lines of mountainous 

 country, presents one or two points of nearly 4000 feet in altitude, 

 and in the Gaspe peninsular the elevation averages 1,500 feet. It is 

 made up largely of crystalline, magnesian locks, including talcose 

 and chloritic schists and beds of ^serpentine, associated in places 

 with micaceous and gneissoid rocks and other crystalline representa- 

 tives, the true age of which is still more or less uncertain. 



On passing from the Laurentide Mountains southwards to the St. 

 Lawrence, the gneissoid Archaean rocks become overlaid unconform- 

 ably by Cambrian and Lower Silurian strata. Where the river enters 

 the province, and for some distance eastward, the latter occur 011 

 both shores, and they continue along the north shore to beyond the 

 city of Quebec. They reappear further east in the Mingan Islands, 

 and also, with accompanying Upper Silurian strata, in the Island of 

 Anticosti. On the south side of the river, Cambrian slates and 

 other strata have been brought up by a great fault into a position 

 apparently higher than that of the Hudson River beds. This fault, 

 first indicated and traced out by Sir William Logan, extends along the 

 bed of the gulf and river to the immediate vicinity of Quebec, and 

 then turns inland towards the south-west, and continues in that 





