The Forest Resources of the Labrador Peninsula. 29 



northern boundary extended to the East Main and Hamilton 

 Rivers, thereby acquiring an additional strip of territory 250 

 miles in width at its western extremity, and including the whole 

 of Lake Mistassini, the Rupert River, the Nottoway River and 

 surrounding country. The province now has an area of 351,873 

 square miles, and ranks next to British Columibia with 372,630 

 square miles. The name Labrador is now restricted to a twenty- 

 mile strip along the north-east coast, and all the rest (about 350,- 

 000 square miles) of this immense territory is known as the Dis- 

 trict of Ungava. 



The whole peninsula may be described as a high rolling 

 plateau, underlain by glaciated Archgean rocks, and dotted with 

 myriads of lakes and rivers, occupying nearly a quarter of the 

 total area, and forming such a perfect network that with a know- 

 ledge of the country, it is possible to travel with canoes in almost 

 any direction. The striae and other glacial phenomena show that 

 during the ice age the peninsula was completely covered w4th an 

 immense sheet of ice, whose greatest thickness was midway be- 

 tween the headwaters of the East Main and Hamilton Rivers. 

 From this central gathering ground the ice moved outward in all 

 directions, gouging out rocky basins, and ploughing long shallow 

 grooves between the low rocky ridges. Most of the smaller lakes 

 have been formed by the deposition of glacial till in these grooves, 

 and from the top of a ridge I once cotmted forty-six lakes iving 

 all around me. The only portion of the peninsula not thickly 

 dotted with lakes is the low country covered with marine sand's 

 and clays along the east coast of James Bay. FuUv nine-tenths 

 of the peninsula is underlain by medium to coarse-textured horn- 

 blende-granite-gneiss of different ages, and varying in color from 

 red to Hght grey, a pinkish variety being very abundant. The 

 average level of the interior is less than 2,500 feet, and over an 

 area of 200,000 square miles does not vary more than three or 

 four hundred feet. Towards James Bay there is a gentle slope, 

 but along the Atlantic slope the level rises abruptly inland', 

 and the coast is deeply cut by many narrow bays or fiords. 

 Throughout the interior the ridges of low rounded hills seldom 

 rise more than 500 feet above the general level of the surrounding 

 country. Most of the large rivers have cut deep into the general 

 level of the plateau, and their channels must be of very ancient 

 origin. The rivers of the southern watershed seldom exceed 300 

 miles in length, and flow into the St. Lawrence. Several large 

 rivers carry the waters of the western drainage area down to 

 James Bay and Hudson Bay. The Koksoak and its tributaries 

 carry the waters of the northern drainage area (ncarlv 60,000 

 square miles) down to Ungava Bay. On the eastern watershed, 

 three large rivers flow into Lake Melville, at the head of Hamilton 

 Inlet. The lakes and rivers interlock so closely that the loncrest 



