100 LABRADOR 



only in the light of rapid and incomplete exploration, are 

 to be viewed as those belonging to old-mountain stubs. 

 The facts show with certainty that an enormous volume 

 of rock has been carried away to the depths of the Atlantic, 

 where the debris is accumulating to this day. Observa- 

 tions in structure, too technical to be described in these 

 pages, seem to show as clearly that the staple rocks of the 

 Labrador were, in Archean times, built up into a gnarled 

 and knotted mountain-system extensive in area and lofty 

 in an Alpine, or even Himalayan, sense. 



But the imagination is not left entirely unaided in its 

 attempt to reconstruct the Archean mountains. In com- 

 paratively recent geologic time a portion of the Basement 

 Complex on the Labrador has been warped up, i.e. bodily 

 uplifted, so high that the streams of the country have been 

 enabled to cut many thousands of feet down into the old 

 rocks. As a result, the 150 miles of the coastal belt south- 

 eastward from Cape Chidley presents to-day a rugged 

 relief, rivalling in grandeur many famous Alps of Switzer- 

 land and the Selkirks of the Canadian West. Here the 

 strong topography has a distinct coastal trend, and its 

 boldness forcibly suggests that there has been a veritable 

 resurrection of the Archean mountain-chain. This long 

 mountain-belt has been called the "Torngat" Range, 

 from the Eskimo word for "bad spirits." A single view 

 of the bare, forbidding, riven, and jagged cliffs of the 

 saw-tooth ridges and alpine horns, whether seen in the 

 interior or springing their thousands of feet from salt 

 water in the fiords, leaves no wonder at the name. The 

 absence of trees, the eerie loneliness of the whole land, and, 

 in the countless gorges and ravines, the depth of shadow 



