GEOLOGY AND SCENERY OF NORTHEAST COAST 111 



tion more helpful in giving one an accurate and significant 

 idea of the landscape can be applied. From the deck of 

 schooner or steamer coursing several miles offshore, the 

 hundred visible hills of , the coast-belt are seen to accord so 

 closely in elevation that the general sky-line is notably flat. 

 The flatness would scarcely be more pronounced if some 

 miraculous shovel were to fill in the valleys. Such magic 

 filling would give a land-surface quite similar to that which 

 explorers have found sweeping westward over the wide 

 interior of Labrador and beyond to Lake Winnipeg. It is 

 the last " almost-plain " to which the Archean mountain- 

 system has been reduced by the wasting of the ages. Since 

 the plain was formed, it has been bodily elevated some hun- 

 dreds of feet, and especially on its edges, as on this southern 

 half of the Labrador, new valleys have been etched out by 

 weather and running water. So'numerous are these valleys 

 that the relief along the coast is wonderfully diversified, 

 but it belongs none the less to an old-mountain plateau 

 cut in intaglio. 



Before we take the next step in declaring the develop- 

 ment of scenery on the Labrador, it is well to review the 

 ground over which we have come. The limited explora- 

 tion of the Labrador has led to the recognition of several 

 distinct units in its topography, all to be related directly 

 or indirectly to an ancient mountain-system represented 

 to-day in the much-worn Basement Complex. The south- 

 ern half of the coast represents a part of the greatest single 

 element in the relief of British North America the 

 Archean plateau. The Torngat Range of the extreme 

 north forms the " Alps" of eastern America, true moun- 

 tains, as shown not only in the folded and crumpled struc- 



